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by atemerev 3708 days ago
You keep confusing "being entitled to content" and "being entitled to equal and non-discriminatory treatment". Do you understand the difference?
2 comments

No, thats not at all what it is. There are regulatory and legal reasons why netflix content (even specific content) isnt available everywhere. Its not discriminatory.

Its simple entitlement. Don't try to confuse the issue by making it about some kind of discriminatory issue. A business has to have licences to operate in a country, there are many stipulations and there is a cost involved with those stipulations, netflix has no oblication to jump through legal hurdles and pay more money so everyone can enjoy their content.

I work for a global company - one who works in the digital realm and makes AAA games... trust me, I deal with these things. You'd be surprised the effort for a US company to sell their product/service in china...

I am not surprised at all, and I am not asking anything from Netflix, like I explained earlier. I was on sell side too, and I know that resolving international legal hurdles is not the most exciting thing in life (I lived and worked in 6 countries).

But this only means that international law is a mess, and have to be repealed/updated. It won't happen soon, unless there will be more and more people willingfully breaking the law, as they are damn right to feel "entitled" to equal service, which can be delivered by config option. Technically, it is not a big deal. If it is a huge legal deal, the laws be damned.

And Netflix and your AAA-titles-producing company both have no moral right to legally harass people who can't possibly buy your things and have to copy them for free, of course. What "damage" they are bringing to you, if you can't get any money from them anyway?
"have to copy them for free"

Man, i didnt realize they HAD to copy them... i swear they have the option to just not watch.

Oh, but again, they feel entitled to watch.

Yes, and African Americans had the option of not visiting "white only" restaurants. Do you see any difference here? Because I don't.
Yes, there is a huge difference.

I bet people like Rosa Parks, MLK, etc... people who paid dearly for Equal rights would be so upset that you've lowered the meaning of that word to simple movies...

Being treated differently, being cast aside and being held back from success because of your race, that you cant change, that you had no control of aquiring - is nowhere near not being able to watch a movie because of legal restrictions of where you live. How do you possibly consider those things even remotely similar?

Rosa Parks couldn't ride the bus based on the color of her skin.

In fact, there were sit-ins in "white only" movie theaters, because some people weren't accepted here even if they were able to pay. It's not that they didn't have the option to just not watch the movie, right?

Back then, white people were responding to just accusations exactly the same way — "come on, it's _just_ the bus ride! it's just the movie! what's the big deal?"

I can't easily come to live where I want — visa issues. This is discrimination by nationality, exactly the same as discrimination by skin color. And part of this big discrimination is my inability to watch the movie based on the place where I live.

>Being treated differently [...] because of _, that you cant change, that you had no control of [...] is nowhere near not being able to [...] because of _, [that you cant change, that you had no control of]. How do you possibly consider those things even remotely similar?

Edited that for clarity.

Does the right to equal treatment mean the seller must charge the same price to everyone?

For example, must the price to stream the latest James Bond movie be the same in India as the United States?

A trick question. Theoretically, I don't know.

Pragmatically, though, it is not a big deal. Here in Switzerland, I am content to pay 2x price for the same content as in the US — we have to support our reputation as the most expensive country on Earth, after all :) In India, one can attempt to sell software and content for the same price as in US, but it won't generate any sales. The pragmatic option is to sell Indian-localized software for low price, and English versions for original price, which is already working perfectly well for software and everyone is happy. Both me and an Indian girl can buy any US-made software. At least it was possible when the software was downloaded or delivered physically — software in app stores are becoming subject to the same shitty policies as the rest of digital content.

The world is becoming increasingly global, but policymakers and copyright holders try to isolate us in nation state borders.