Despite small steps forward, geoblocking will continue

The European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee has today voted on a new regulation designed to limit the practice of “geoblocking”. While the regulation goes further than what was originally proposed by the European Commission, including e-books, music, video games and other non-audiovisual copyrighted content in the products and services made accessible across borders, it falls far short of ending the practice of geoblocking. 

Greens/EFA digital agenda spokesperson Julia Reda comments:

"We are pleased to have secured a stronger deal for consumers than originally offered by the European Commission. Content such as e-books, music and video games will now also be accessible across the entire EU, at least if the seller has acquired the necessary rights. However, I am afraid that this progress is largely superficial, because the regulation exempts videos from its scope altogether. Consumers will continue to be confronted with the dreaded message "this video is not available in your country". This stubbornness will only punish those who are trying to find legal ways to stream videos, especially those trying to access native language materials, plus language teachers and sports fans. We will continue to push for a genuine end to geoblocking."