The World Wide Web isn’t really such when it comes to online video. The borders of each country are being maintained in this virtual environment. While proxy servers could always be relied on to get round this issue, Hulu has even started to crack down on these territory-levelers.
International Rights Licensing
I have, on several different occasions, written about the problems of international rights licensing and how this issue is going to harm online video ventures. I am, of course, talking about the fact that the BBC iPlayer and similar British services are only available to UK residents, while content on Hulu and the like is only available to U.S. residents.
The situation sucks and is totally unfathomable in this Internet age which, like it or not, the world has become a much smaller place. The Web is, after all, the World Wide Web for a reason, with the ideas of borders infringing on our creativity and freedom of expression seemingly at an end. Except in the world of premium Web television services.
Why Oh Why?
I do understand why the limitations are in place – the BBC relies on a license fee paid by every UK citizen, while Hulu and the like have only acquired the rights to broadcast the content in the United States.
Programs such as Lost and Heroes are often shown in the U.S. months before they are shown elsewhere so the idea of suddenly making that content available to watch worldwide wouldn’t appeal to the companies involved. Especially when the makers of such programs can charge broadcasters around the world a premium to carry the content.
However, I truly believe that until online video services embrace different territories, the market won’t grow as fast or as big as it could do.
For Or Against Us?
At the end of March, it looked as though Hulu was preparing for a launch into new territories. The company hired Johannes Larcher as senior vice president of international operations. His role is described as being “responsible for leading Hulu’s expansion efforts outside the United States.”
As of yet, nothing has happened in this area, with the same inane message about overcoming “legal and business issues” greeting international visitors to Hulu. In fact, Hulu has been working against non-U.S. residents accessing the site.
Hulu has been running geo-checks on incoming visitors to ensure no-one outside of the U.S. managed to sneak a view of the content since late last year. But VPN (virtual private network) creators managed to get round the checks by making your IP anonymous. Even that method has now been stopped.
All Loopholes Closed…
According to TechCrunch, Hulu has once again tweaked its settings and is now blocking anonymous proxies along with every other method people like me (based in the UK) may have been using to access Hulu content. Couple this with the Boxee debacle and it’s clear Hulu is certainly taking no prisoners.
Is this justified? Maybe, but until a solution for international viewers is found, would it really hurt to leave a small loophole such as this one open? After all, what is going to be the direct and unavoidable reaction to this action – people will just turn to torrent sites for their fix of the latest American shows instead.
