The EU get shirty to Mega-Corp Inc only when their ideological dream of a super-state is threatened.
But the exclusivity of sports rights is fine and dandy. Pushing wages down is super-duper. Crushing of local culture by mass movement of cheap labour is FAB.
In other words the EU has moved away from primarily serving the public, it's focus is now itself.
I'm shocked, shocked!
It's taken a while but European Monarchy is back in power, they just wear suits these days...
As is the case almost anytime the EU sticks it's nose in they are dealing with a problem that doesn't really exists and making a hash of it that's just going to make the situation for consumers worse.
I wonder if it is the smaller countries that are going to be affected most?
Thanks to Murdoch we seem to have the most expensive TV subscription rates in Europe.
I presume a TV company in one of the smaller countries will be able to negotiate lower prices for films and programmes but if the owners of the rights think that they might make available to a wider audience outside their borders then they are going to want to charge much more.
My numbers were also from the EU but checking back they are from 2005, so slightly out of date. Sorry about that, although quibbling over between one and three percentage points different does not change the overall point I was making.
The impression I got was that it would apply to everything including acquired content.
Correct, any contract which includes territorial restrictions within the EEA would be void. The location of the seller would make no difference.
And obviously where a rights owner is exploiting their own content then they are not contractually restricted anyway. Although they may voluntarily choose not to limit the availability of their services to allow them to sell content elsewhere.
Correct, any contract which includes territorial restrictions within the EEA would be void. The location of the seller would make no difference.
And obviously where a rights owner is exploiting their own content then they are not contractually restricted anyway. Although they may voluntarily choose not to limit the availability of their services to allow them to sell content elsewhere.
I can't see any way this doesn't backfire like hell, and actually end up restricting the amount of content available in the EU, especially niche stuff.
It's a nice idea on paper, but in the real world, it's hard to envisage a situation where it actually works as it's supposed to.
If the EU has filed anti-trust charges they must be arguing that Sky / the studios are in breach of the current law. They couldn't do that in respect of some potential future change in the law.
Yet, as of right now, organisations like the Premier League and La Liga are still selling rights on a country by country basis and the EU is taking no steps to stop them.
If the EU has filed anti-trust charges they must be arguing that Sky / the studios are in breach of the current law. They couldn't do that in respect of some potential future change in the law.
Yet, as of right now, organisations like the Premier League and La Liga are still selling rights on a country by country basis and the EU is taking no steps to stop them.
How do we reconcile the above?
At this point it's probably more a symbolic gesture designed to spur action, rather than the EU actually targeting them. It'll probably keep getting stalled and eventually fall by the wayside.
The issue seems to be that the contracts Sky and the studios signed, specifically prevented access to the service from other countries and also prevent other countries from accessing the UK & Ireland market. I think the EU is arguing that this restricts freedom of trade, but it does seem a bit tenuous to me and I'd imagine Sky will be more than willing to fight against it (because that's an expensive contract to get ruled void)...
I wonder if it is the smaller countries that are going to be affected most?
Thanks to Murdoch we seem to have the most expensive TV subscription rates in Europe.
I presume a TV company in one of the smaller countries will be able to negotiate lower prices for films and programmes but if the owners of the rights think that they might make available to a wider audience outside their borders then they are going to want to charge much more.
TV sub costs in the UK aren't really that much different to the rest of Europe in real terms. Pricing of everything looks worse in the UK because people look at the currency exchange which aren't designed for a countries economic situation to be taken into account. There are factors such as wages that automatically inflate sale prices of products/services in the UK when using exchange rates as we generally get paid more for the same job which makes prices for operations taking part in the UK more expensive so the price is higher. But in real terms it's about the same percentage of wages as it in other countries.
However you are right it will most likely hurt smaller countries more. For the same reason as above they pay less when looked at from a currency POV but they are paying roughly the same in real terms. To beat the likes of Sky to rights who have plenty of money they are going to have to match them on currency terms which means vastly paying more in real terms for their country, it's simply not viable and Sky aren't going to sublease the content to these broadcasters at what would be a fair price as it potentially undermines their business and prevents them getting value for money.
It's most likely going to make Sky and a few other major European media companies stronger while weakening the rest. I'm not even sure it helps the likes of Netflix as their European income is relatively tiny and currently they are only really winning first run rights to content in countries where no-one else wants it but there are broadcasters in other European countries who do want it so something that was cheap As no-one else wants it in say Holland stops being cheap as there is a demand for it in the UK. You would think it's going to weaken every regions selection. And even acquiring their own contents going to shoot through the roof as they operate on a standard production setup, they pay a licence fee to the production company to commission a show in a region (mainly the US) and this is usually around 50% of the production costs. The production company makes up the other 50% as they have the secondary and international rights. In Netflix's case their deal actually gives them an automatic option on international rights for any county they have launched in when by the production wrapping (or that will be launched before a certain date) but the production company still has the other counties rights. This change would make Netflix buy the pan Europe rights so the costs are going to shoot up. And the production companies may even ask for more when negotiating the deal with Netflix as it's going to potentially hinder their secondary/Home Media market income as well so that needs covered
If the EU has filed anti-trust charges they must be arguing that Sky / the studios are in breach of the current law..
Yes, it is a breach of current law.
The commission are claiming that the contracts between Sky and the Hollywood studios explicitly prevent Sky from selling their services outside the UK and Ireland and in some cases require the studios to explicitly exclude the same in contracts with other European broadcasters.
Under the single market territorial restrictions are illegal without a specific justification to why they are needed. The ECJ ruled in the case of Karen Murphy vs MPS, almost four years ago now, that there is no basis to justify selling rights in such a way. Doing so is a violation of antitrust laws as it is only done to prevent competition by restricting licensees.
Yet, as of right now, organisations like the Premier League and La Liga are still selling rights on a country by country basis and the EU is taking no steps to stop them.
We do not know precisely how those contracts are written, though.
One of the outcomes of the above case is it was also ruled that someone cannot be prevented from subscribing to satellite services from other EEA countries. This resulted in the Premier League restricting the Saturday 3pm matches which may be shown to prevent a market existing where different broadcasters are offering different matches.
There is not much of a market for domestic customers in subscribing to such services though. This due to the additional effort required to do so, that the costs generally do not make much difference, and that it may not be in English. Most people who subscribe to TV services do want to watch a range of domestic channels, and with sports events like cricket which are not shown elsewhere.
I would not be surprised if rather than specifying territorial restrictions, contracts are now licensed to specific delivery methods whereby satellite footprints form a physical territorial restriction. I would also expect the Premier League sell rights on a language basis to make them unappealing outside of their intended market.
It does seem strange that given the explicit ruling and how long ago it was that Sky and the studios could have done this. But as even workarounds go against what the EC sees as the spirit of the single market I am sure they would be looking for ways to take such action anyway. The aim of the Digital Single Market Strategy is to end geo-restrictions and open up online content.
My numbers were also from the EU but checking back they are from 2005, so slightly out of date. Sorry about that, although quibbling over between one and three percentage points different does not change the overall point I was making.
No need to apologise. If anything I should apologise to you - I could have worded the opening of my previous post far better.
And as you and another poster said the difference in the percentages is very small. The only reason I post the figures at all was in your original post you calculated the number of German speakers as 60m, and I knew off the top of my head that the population of Germany was 80+ million so my interest was peaked enough to go and look at the figures.
Overall the point we were both trying to make is the same. Roughly 1 in 2 of the EU population can speak English, 1 in 3 can speak German and around 1 in 4 speak French.
Comments
But the exclusivity of sports rights is fine and dandy. Pushing wages down is super-duper. Crushing of local culture by mass movement of cheap labour is FAB.
In other words the EU has moved away from primarily serving the public, it's focus is now itself.
I'm shocked, shocked!
It's taken a while but European Monarchy is back in power, they just wear suits these days...
I wonder if it is the smaller countries that are going to be affected most?
Thanks to Murdoch we seem to have the most expensive TV subscription rates in Europe.
I presume a TV company in one of the smaller countries will be able to negotiate lower prices for films and programmes but if the owners of the rights think that they might make available to a wider audience outside their borders then they are going to want to charge much more.
My numbers were also from the EU but checking back they are from 2005, so slightly out of date. Sorry about that, although quibbling over between one and three percentage points different does not change the overall point I was making.
Correct, any contract which includes territorial restrictions within the EEA would be void. The location of the seller would make no difference.
And obviously where a rights owner is exploiting their own content then they are not contractually restricted anyway. Although they may voluntarily choose not to limit the availability of their services to allow them to sell content elsewhere.
My guess is that the BBC will aggressively move to restrict it to licence fee payers somehow, and lock foreigners out that way...
I can't see any way this doesn't backfire like hell, and actually end up restricting the amount of content available in the EU, especially niche stuff.
It's a nice idea on paper, but in the real world, it's hard to envisage a situation where it actually works as it's supposed to.
If the EU has filed anti-trust charges they must be arguing that Sky / the studios are in breach of the current law. They couldn't do that in respect of some potential future change in the law.
Yet, as of right now, organisations like the Premier League and La Liga are still selling rights on a country by country basis and the EU is taking no steps to stop them.
How do we reconcile the above?
At this point it's probably more a symbolic gesture designed to spur action, rather than the EU actually targeting them. It'll probably keep getting stalled and eventually fall by the wayside.
The issue seems to be that the contracts Sky and the studios signed, specifically prevented access to the service from other countries and also prevent other countries from accessing the UK & Ireland market. I think the EU is arguing that this restricts freedom of trade, but it does seem a bit tenuous to me and I'd imagine Sky will be more than willing to fight against it (because that's an expensive contract to get ruled void)...
TV sub costs in the UK aren't really that much different to the rest of Europe in real terms. Pricing of everything looks worse in the UK because people look at the currency exchange which aren't designed for a countries economic situation to be taken into account. There are factors such as wages that automatically inflate sale prices of products/services in the UK when using exchange rates as we generally get paid more for the same job which makes prices for operations taking part in the UK more expensive so the price is higher. But in real terms it's about the same percentage of wages as it in other countries.
However you are right it will most likely hurt smaller countries more. For the same reason as above they pay less when looked at from a currency POV but they are paying roughly the same in real terms. To beat the likes of Sky to rights who have plenty of money they are going to have to match them on currency terms which means vastly paying more in real terms for their country, it's simply not viable and Sky aren't going to sublease the content to these broadcasters at what would be a fair price as it potentially undermines their business and prevents them getting value for money.
It's most likely going to make Sky and a few other major European media companies stronger while weakening the rest. I'm not even sure it helps the likes of Netflix as their European income is relatively tiny and currently they are only really winning first run rights to content in countries where no-one else wants it but there are broadcasters in other European countries who do want it so something that was cheap As no-one else wants it in say Holland stops being cheap as there is a demand for it in the UK. You would think it's going to weaken every regions selection. And even acquiring their own contents going to shoot through the roof as they operate on a standard production setup, they pay a licence fee to the production company to commission a show in a region (mainly the US) and this is usually around 50% of the production costs. The production company makes up the other 50% as they have the secondary and international rights. In Netflix's case their deal actually gives them an automatic option on international rights for any county they have launched in when by the production wrapping (or that will be launched before a certain date) but the production company still has the other counties rights. This change would make Netflix buy the pan Europe rights so the costs are going to shoot up. And the production companies may even ask for more when negotiating the deal with Netflix as it's going to potentially hinder their secondary/Home Media market income as well so that needs covered
Yes, it is a breach of current law.
The commission are claiming that the contracts between Sky and the Hollywood studios explicitly prevent Sky from selling their services outside the UK and Ireland and in some cases require the studios to explicitly exclude the same in contracts with other European broadcasters.
Under the single market territorial restrictions are illegal without a specific justification to why they are needed. The ECJ ruled in the case of Karen Murphy vs MPS, almost four years ago now, that there is no basis to justify selling rights in such a way. Doing so is a violation of antitrust laws as it is only done to prevent competition by restricting licensees.
We do not know precisely how those contracts are written, though.
One of the outcomes of the above case is it was also ruled that someone cannot be prevented from subscribing to satellite services from other EEA countries. This resulted in the Premier League restricting the Saturday 3pm matches which may be shown to prevent a market existing where different broadcasters are offering different matches.
There is not much of a market for domestic customers in subscribing to such services though. This due to the additional effort required to do so, that the costs generally do not make much difference, and that it may not be in English. Most people who subscribe to TV services do want to watch a range of domestic channels, and with sports events like cricket which are not shown elsewhere.
I would not be surprised if rather than specifying territorial restrictions, contracts are now licensed to specific delivery methods whereby satellite footprints form a physical territorial restriction. I would also expect the Premier League sell rights on a language basis to make them unappealing outside of their intended market.
It does seem strange that given the explicit ruling and how long ago it was that Sky and the studios could have done this. But as even workarounds go against what the EC sees as the spirit of the single market I am sure they would be looking for ways to take such action anyway. The aim of the Digital Single Market Strategy is to end geo-restrictions and open up online content.
Thanks a lot - very high quality post as always.
No need to apologise. If anything I should apologise to you - I could have worded the opening of my previous post far better.
And as you and another poster said the difference in the percentages is very small. The only reason I post the figures at all was in your original post you calculated the number of German speakers as 60m, and I knew off the top of my head that the population of Germany was 80+ million so my interest was peaked enough to go and look at the figures.
Overall the point we were both trying to make is the same. Roughly 1 in 2 of the EU population can speak English, 1 in 3 can speak German and around 1 in 4 speak French.
The BBC website is available outside the UK, but carries ads when it detects your location. Maybe they could do this on iPlayer too?