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EU to move ahead with cultural quotas for streaming services

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Re: EU to move ahead with cultural quotas for streaming services

#111

Protectionism is bad in all its forms. Content providers want to capture the local market and should include local productions -- if that's what the subscribers want. Mandating a quota is backwards. If a state wants to sponsor work and make it available at low costs I'm sure content services would jump to provide it. All this does is either increase cost or reduce available selection in the affected markets. If the s…

> Protectionism is bad in all its forms.

Yet it was the basis for economic growth of every developed economy. From the US, Germany, Japan to China.

The only countries that have no protectionism and free markets are poor African ones that find themselves under the IMFs thumb. All of which have stagnating economies.

Re: EU to move ahead with cultural quotas for streaming services

#113
post #55
post #9

How can this work in practice? Can the 30% be from any EU country? I'm Irish, we don't produce that much stuff. If it has to represent 30% of the catalogue, that catalogue is going to have to shrink massively.

It can't work mathematically unless it is from any EU country. There are more than 3 EU countries, which means that eventually you will get some great content from some other country that you are not allowed to access. That is 30% Irish, 30% French, 30% German, and 30% Italian content already doesn't add up, meaning some things that you personally might want from a different country are on the list of things you are…

Once you have an amazon.com account, you magically also have an amazon.de account, and an amazon.it account... and it's a few clicks to switch in the app. Maybe that's how it'll go?

Re: EU to move ahead with cultural quotas for streaming services

#114

Protectionism is bad in all its forms. Content providers want to capture the local market and should include local productions -- if that's what the subscribers want. Mandating a quota is backwards. If a state wants to sponsor work and make it available at low costs I'm sure content services would jump to provide it. All this does is either increase cost or reduce available selection in the affected markets. If the s…

Protectionism is bad in all its forms. I read a book once that made an interesting point: 1. English-language films make more money than French-language films because there are more English speakers than French speakers. 2. Because of this, an English-language film can profitably have a bigger budget, allowing better production values. 3. Once a film has been produced, the rights will get sold in every foreign market…

As an American who doesn't live in NYC or LA, I sympathize with wanting high quality, contextually diverse films; however, I would never want my (in this case, state) government to try to restrict the market of films available to me.

Re: EU to move ahead with cultural quotas for streaming services

#115
post #68
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given a choice of dystopias, I would also prefer to avoid the one where "the market" decides what I should or shouldn't watch. You really want the state deciding what you watch?

BBC and Channel 4 both make excellent content.

And both show quite a bit of content made elsewhere in the EU.

Re: EU to move ahead with cultural quotas for streaming services

#116
post #3

> So the move — which will probably draw loud and hair-raising screams from U.S. commentators — is, nonetheless, A Good Thing. I'm in EU. A Good Thing is letting me watch whatever the fuck I want. It's a real dystopia if the state decides which movies you should or shouldn't watch.

Given a choice of dystopias, I would also prefer to avoid the one where "the market" decides what I should or shouldn't watch. Nothing here is suggesting that you should be prevented from watching Jersey Shore, or the Kardashians, or whatever superhero action flick is in vogue this month, if that's your taste; but if it all came down to money then that's all any of us would get whether we like it or not.

All of us are the market.

The market just means that you personally decide what you watch, by choosing what to spend your own money on.

You'd rather have that decision made by someone else, instead of by you?

Re: EU to move ahead with cultural quotas for streaming services

#117
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you ever seen films from your own country? I, as a Dutchman have, and I can say that most of them suck and there's a very good reason you don't see them on stuff like Netflix. This also seems like a recursive problem. US/Hollywood have huge marketing power, thanks to this, they can ensure that the movie they produce should make a decent profit, they can then invest more money to make better production. On the…

> This also seems like a recursive problem. US/Hollywood have huge marketing power, thanks to this, they can ensure that the movie they produce should make a decent profit, they can then invest more money to make better production. No, it's a problem of target audience. If you produce films for a Dutch audience, you have two options: either appeal to a sense of Dutch pride or history, or go for something so generic t…

>No, it's a problem of target audience. If you produce films for a Dutch audience, you have two options: either appeal to a sense of Dutch pride or history, or go for something so generic that a decent swath of the population will like it; otherwise you won't have enough of an audience to make a profit. This is what they do, so Dutch films are generally about about our navy in the 16th to 18th century, about WWII, a romcom or some adaptation of a Dutch Children's book. You cannot locally produce a film about something which lies outside of the realm of interest of most Dutch people; Hollywood can, since they have a larger audience, and therefore do have the ability to target niche markets.

Well, EU has 400 million people. One can very well create a movie that appeals to EU audiences. We have lots of shared sensibility and modern problems and history (and it doesn't have to be BS like "16th century dutch navy" or "17th century french villagers").

Movies like Blow Up or Dolce Vita or For a Fistful of Dollars etc where shown successfully all over Europe at one time (and we still have films by people like Lars Von Trier, Almodovar, and so on).

Just because you make something that has a Dutch or Swedish or French etc sensibility, it doesn't mean it can't have pan-European (or even global) appeal. Trainspotting is as British as it gets, for example, but hit Europe big, as did La Haine, La vita e bella, Amelie, and others.

Besides, not all movies have to be blockbusters and multi 100 million dollar productions. Even from the US, I'd rather have the chance to watch some Hal Hartley or Jarmusch, or Cronneburg, that barely pushed 5-10 million dollars in the box office than the nth repeatitive formulaic shit from Hollywood.

Re: EU to move ahead with cultural quotas for streaming services

#118
This is the side of the EU that foreigners usually don't see. This is the reason there are movements for quitting in every member state (with varying levels of success).

The isolationism EU is beginning to display is starting to worry even me and the alternative is a bunch of UKIP-like nationalist which I am not really a big fan of.

Re: EU to move ahead with cultural quotas for streaming services

#119
post #7

> The proposals will require that streaming services give over at least 30% of their on-demand catalogues to original productions made in each EU country where a service is provided (individual EU Member States could choose to set the content bar even higher, at 40%) 30% for each country seems really high to me. As usual for regulation, there will likely be high unintended consequences. While in the US and elsewhere…

I'm amazed something this poorly thought out is about to be 'signed off'. I foresee shrinking catalogues and a massive increase in piracy. Go EU!

Probably going to need a license to pirate soon. That way they can ensure that all illegally downloaded content is culturally appropriate. I am only half joking with this comment, I could see it happening
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