[gambiting]

The thing that really worries me and which no one seems to be talking about is the region locking of localisation for streaming content.

For context - we're a Polish family living in the UK(like 2 million other Polish people). We have a small child who loves Disney films, and because he is normally exposed to English(and speaks it fluently) I'd like him to at least watch cartoons in Polish. But Disney region locks most(not all, but majority) of Polish localisation to Poland only. When we visit Poland I can watch all Disney content in Polish on my UK account without any issue - but when we're in the UK these localisation options disappear. So Disney clearly has those options but chooses not to offer them.

So right now, at least we can still buy DVDs or have those shipped over. But it's clear that Disney wants to stop distribution of physical media - as they've already done in some regions.

What then for multilingual families? Just "suck it up" and don't have access to content in my language, because I don't happen to currently live in Poland?

[fragmede]

While there is the bigger picture to consider, my solution to get access to Swedish content for my then-partner while we were in the US was to use a VPN. Mullvad worked for local content, but if you still have friends/family back home, a tailscale exit node might work better, especially for Disney+.

[ssss11]

That’s a fascinating perspective which I wasn’t aware of - locking of language localisation. Thanks for raising.

[yonatan8070]

A few years ago I travelled to Romania for vacation, Netflix simply didn't let me play the content I downloaded at home on the flight back, and while I was there all of the subtitles in my language were not available

[orloffm]

I don't pay for Disney+ in Poland because they don't have Russian. Even though it's a native language of 1M+ immigrants and 99% of their content is translated. They probably just don't want my money, I have no other explanation.

[gambiting]

Well so from what I understand at least part of it due to Disney selling off the rights to various translations to local companies(so for instance the translation to Lion King in Polish is owned by a local media company, not Disney, even though they obviously own the rights to the film), so they don't necessarily have automatic rights to distribute that translation worldwide without permission.

But on the other hand......it's Disney. They should be able to consolidate, buy those rights back, and distribute all localizations they have globally.

[jareklupinski]

would love a solution for this too

raising bi-lingual kids is much easier when you can give them second language media, and it doesn't seem like it would be an expensive flag for Disney to flip...

might even be an opportunity to rebrand themselves as educational...

[keiferski]

For your situation specifically check out this site. I think there are some cartoons:

https://35mm.online/