(had no idea where to put this. Spam is all games and I think it too stupid and ranty for the debate section)

It's really bothering me lately how much the internet is being divided based on nationality. Websites that are region locked, or split by nationality.
And videos that are region locked, even on YouTube. YouTube for chrissakes! Hulu or something at least makes a bit of sense, but a lot of this stuff is ridiculous.
GameSpot or whatever redirects me to their UK site, IGN has a UK and AU subsite things. Adverts even seem to target where I'm from.

I mean I love the stereotype that Americans don't know that there are any other countries (have I just alienated the bulk of this forum? ;D) as much as the next guy, but the internet was always the one place that broke down those barriers, you know?

Not to exaggerate or say that the internet is totally ruined now, but it's just actively going the wrong and bad direction. It should always have been a uniter, not a divider.
(and I'm not JUST saying this because the UK is seemingly the one place in Europe that can't watch the new FMA series online)

Well most of it is because of the country you live in. Each country has its own rules as to what you can and can not do. Some country's Internet is filtered to the point where nothing form the out side can be seen.
So that is why you see "videos that are region locked".
I have read where some games are "locked" in Australia because of the violence in them. All it is, is a body of people that try to protect everyone from everything.
Not a lot you can do about it.

I...don't get it. There are other countries?

Okay to start with I'm moving this to the Debate section as that seems to be what you are wanting, a debate on how flawed the internet's "fairness" is, and that brings up if people believe it is or not.

The other point is, I've quite easily watched all the Brotherhood episodes online, and I'm in the UK too.

Websites make money from ad revenue. so location based targeted advertising makes sense. This way a UK-only store can target UK clients rather than various other countries. Another reason to have locations split up is to reduce server load and latency. Having a hosted site at a closer physical location to the targeted country/region would speed connections/website browsing. As for videos being region locked this is the digital version of region encoding already forced upon DVDs. It's just a by-product of global licensing and distribution.

that being said
http://www.uk-anime.net/news/London_Expo_Announcements.html -> expect fma brotherhood streaming for the UK in july. (with catch-up)


breaking down barriers where you can (relatively) freely communicate across the world? Yes
breaking down barriers where you can watch some commercial product? No

~ Region Blocked DVDs/games etc ~

I feel like a rant. And this is something that i think the world should scrap, seriously region block is one of the most irritating and pointless things to me. What is the problem with buying a perfectly legal DVD in one part of the world and wanting to watch it in another!? What if people travle a lot, have split nationality, move to a different country, would I have to replace all my electronic equipment, DVD's, games and God knows what else, aswell as paying all the expense of going there in the first place!!??? (must ask my friend shes moving to new zealand this summer) Living in England I obviously speak english, yet if i say went to visit america or austraila and just happened to want to purchase a dvd or game there, I can''t use it! Somehow I think I'd rather buy an american dvd rather than a spanish or a french or a german one, seeing that I don't speak any of those languages, but nooooooo, ironically i can't listen to anything in my own language from abroad. And this is particually annoying for anime fans such as myself since PAL versions of most stuff never even get released.

Anyways am I the only person who thinks its annoying or do other people agree?

(soz if such a rant has already been posted before, I did look but couldnt find one XD)

^ @Forsaken Love - We have a thread in our Debate District sub-forum, on region blocking of viewing commercial product such as licensed anime on Internet, and I think we can safely expand the scope there and include this discussion on that thread.
Hence, I'm going to add your post to National Division/Regeon Blocking Of the Internet, or blocking of other commercial products such as DVD & Games thread in a while. Please continue this discussion there.


--------------------------------


@Vagrant - As the initial discussion waned, I'm expanding the scope of the discussion topic to include the "region blocking" of other commercial products, such as DVD, Games, etc., to accommodate the new but similar discussion.




ETA: June 26
Thread merged. Please resume the discussions.

Actually as a Brit I haven't found this too much of an issue. What films is it you are buying that you can't get in our own region? I've bought dozens of anime films online that are region code 0 (but then, thats the originals with subtitles, I don't like dubs too much) and they can be watched anywhere.

There are perhaps one or two films that haven't been released over here that I'd like, but if I was that desperate to have them, I'd buy a muti-region DVD player and never suffer this issue again.