[Hnrobert42]

What you are saying makes sense for legit viewers, but the goal of all this geofencing nonsense is ostensibly because content producers want to sue or press charges against pirates. They have to do that where the pirates are physically located, not where they got a credit card.

[saurik]

This is a shocking explanation, as it doesn't seem compatible with the oft-detailed explanation of these region locking mechanisms as being more about carving up contracts and extracting more value. As an example (from a year ago, before Paramount+, which has been confusing), you can watch Star Trek: Discovery in the United States... burn only on CBS All Access. Netflix managed to score the European rights to stream that, where CBS doesn't have a brand or any other particularly-interesting-to-that-audience content. Netflix thereby isn't allowed to show Star Trek: Discovery to people in the US, but I don't see how any explanation about that could be tied to pressing charges for piracy?

[Hnrobert42]

I’m totally talking out my ass, so don’t be too shocked. :-)

It could be that the decision about which service gets European access rights is made only after the decision about which content will even be allowed for broadcast in a region.

It could be that in these huge corporations, the business side of the company negotiates regional access rights. The totally separate legal department enforces the geofence, and they are driven more by their contact with content producers’ anti-piracy legal departments, squeaky wheel style.

Anyhow, like I said, just speculation.