Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EU to move ahead with cultural quotas for streaming services

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 343 posts

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

#291

Post by adreamingsoul »

GW150914 wrote: post #251
wutbrodo wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the side of the EU that foreigners usually don't see. FWIW, this is the main side of the EU that I'm aware of: laughably bad lawmaking, based on complete unawareness of (or apathy towards?) the concept that the consequences of policies aren't based on wishing on a star that they be a certain way. Don't get me wrong: I'm not sure I'd rather live (as I do) under the US's policy regime than I would under the E…

Don't get me wrong: I'm not sure I'd rather live (as I do) under the US's policy regime than I would under the EU's. But our pathologies of governance are different ones. You know how the saying goes, you can live under US domestic policy or US foreign policy, but you can’t escape US policy. The idea of the EU was that by working together the member states could get their way in the face of that US foreign policy mor…

"you can live under US domestic policy or US foreign policy, but you can’t escape US policy" - that's depressing.

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

#292

Post by setr »

threeseed wrote: post #286
setr wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite positive what will instead happen is psuedo-companies will prop up in each country, whose specific purpose is to produce a sufficient number of garbage but 'local' film, to license to each streaming provider, to meet the requirement. If netflix has a catalogue of 600, and belgium only has 90 films, then 210 pieces of shit will be produced to fluff it up (and likely explicitly ignored by the recommendation a…

Your entire premise is utter nonsense. Lots of countries have minimum local content provisions. And in none of those countries have their been companies whose sole job it is to produce garbage content. You know why ? Because (a) nobody wants to work or be involved with garbage, (b) the cost of producing garbage is often the same as producing something amazing, (c) its hard for writers to have the motivation to delibe…

What universe are you coming from? I mean hell, just look at porn as a trivial example against all three of your points. Sure, theres some decent porn out there, but by and large its trash. Exactly at the minimum quality required to service its needs, and its a huge industry. And its got the works: directors, actors, writers, producers, all working together to produce a shitshow, because its a profitable shitshow. Distinctly because its cheap to produce shit, and if it sells well despite being shit, theres a lot of money to be made.

Im not saying good things won’t be produced, I’m saying the market will optimize, and theres a very simple, clear and obvious “happy path” that directly conflicts with the spirit and intent of this law. I don’t know of a universe we can live in where money isn’t the primary motivator of a (generally open) market. I also don’t know of a universe where it costs the same to do more work than less, or a universe where people globally refuse shit work, when the price is (more than) right.

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

#293

Post by megaremote »

phobosdeimos wrote: post #109

Everyone here actively despises the local film industry. We do not need to inflict Dutch television on the world. Thats torture. Good shows should earn their ratings, not be force fed- if your culture is so great France and Germany you wouldn't need these subsidies. Netflix is not a public broadcaster.

So you in support of dumping then?

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

#294

Post by reaperducer »

gamblor956 wrote: post #272
reaperducer wrote: post #234

This sort of thing is the reason there are so many Canadian channels on satellite radio in North America, and also why there are so many Canadian-produced shows on pay TV channels like HGTV and Food Network. It's also why the version of Dire Straits' Money For Nothing that plays on most SiriusXM stations is the sanitized, politically correct Canadian version, not the real version that was played on American radio in…

There are numerous Canadian-produced shows on cable TV because Canada costs about 50% of shooting in the US. This makes the financials pen out for lower-budget shows that would otherwise die if made in the U.S. Generally, the higher-budget shows are shot in the US. Largely, because the cast members on higher budget shows are less willing to move to Canada for half of the year. Compare, e.g., Suits and other USA shows…

While I don’t disagree that many shows are made in Canada because it’s cheaper, the fact remains that the CRTC requires something like 30% “CanCon” in order to permit carriage (TV) or coverage (sat radio) in Canada.

Canadian-focused channels were a specific requirement for Sirius to sell radios in Canada. Before that, there were no Canadian channels, and people would import Sirius radios from border towns.

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

#295

Post by jnordwick »

irrational wrote: post #282
gamblor956 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LA is the more frequent stand-in for NYC on TV (e.g., CSI NY, Brooklyn 99, etc.). Humorously enough, Toronto frequently fills in for LA on lower-budget TV productions (e.g., Supergirl, anything on SyFy).

What fills in for Toronto?

Seattle

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

#296

Post by lkrubner »

phyller wrote: post #289
lkrubner wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are only two languages with large demographics in the USA: English and Spanish. If the FCC created a regulation that said streaming services must support at least 30% Spanish, I think that would be an improvement, and it would also be easy for the streaming services to hit that goal. Perhaps you could argue that smaller language groups should also be supported. According to the 2010 USA Census, there were 2…

In the US, there are spanish streaming services available and Chinese streaming services available. You can find movies from every country. It's a free market, and services from other countries are allowed. If they did what you said, it would be difficult for foreign streaming services, and even small American services to exist. And it would just concentrate the industry further in a few big companies.

There are some streaming services that are available for the larger language groups, however to depend on the market is to depend on a series of happenstance circumstances that are sensitive to which companies decide to offer what. Only the government can ensure that each language is represented. The smaller the language group, the more that group could benefit from having some support from a legal mandate.

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

#298

Post by hrktb »

phyller wrote: 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…

This model has already be adopted for France for more than a decade for music (and tv + movies ?), I imagine the 40% number actualy comes from there.

The direct effect was a tsunami of money poored into anyone that could produce anything in French, just to meet the quota.

Content is fast to produce and there is no judgement on quality regarding the quota. For radio the impact was bigger, but I think it just accelerated a trend of people moving to on demand music anyway.

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

#299

Post by Bjartr »

setr wrote: post #280
phyller wrote: 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 quite positive what will instead happen is psuedo-companies will prop up in each country, whose specific purpose is to produce a sufficient number of garbage but 'local' film, to license to each streaming provider, to meet the requirement. If netflix has a catalogue of 600, and belgium only has 90 films, then 210 pieces of shit will be produced to fluff it up (and likely explicitly ignored by the recommendation a…

For smaller countries, could a service small up exclusive rights to most feature length media, effectiy locking out competitors?

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

#300

Post by andrewla »

ZainRiz wrote: post #253
andrewla wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what degree is the regulation about restricting individual's choice vs. forcing corporate compliance? If a European user chooses to access Netflix through a VPN, are they in violation of the regulation, or is the VPN provider, or is Netflix, for not doing sufficient checking? Frankly, it's amazing that so many regional policies, both regulatory (like GDPR) and policy (region encoding) have survived in the modern i…

To take the EU's perspective, it's not about restricting individual's choice, but to encourage other local choices as well

I understand the purpose of the regulations -- France, in particular, has had similar regulations for movie theaters since forever, so there would always be some French movies playing. Here it is easy -- consumers are not required to watch the movies, they can do whatever they want, but the theaters are required to devote some theaters and showtimes to support the French culture.

The question is to whom the regulations apply in this case -- presumably Netflix has the primary responsibility, but some regulations are expansive in scope. For example, money laundering regulations require not only that you report certain particular transaction types and not knowingly support money laundering, but that you also go out of your way to monitor and attempt to detect money laundering.

So in theory, regulations for Netflix could also require that Netflix go out of their way to prevent users using VPNs or IP address masking in order to access non-regional Netflix content. Or they could require VPN providers to ensure that they don't allow their customers to do that. Or they could assign criminal or civil penalties for individuals who attempt to circumvent regional restrictions. Or they could just say that Netflix is only responsible for serving content compatible with the user's stated region, and leave it at that.

Post reply on HN