What's worse, is that they can't snap a finger and distribute worldwide. They lobbied themselves into legal corners with all these licensing shenanigans.

They absolutely can if they choose to. They own the rights, they don't need nations' permission to do things with it. However, their lawyers need lots of time to create all sorts of artificially restrictive terms of service and silly contracts with partners rather than just opening the service worldwide.

That's absolutely not true. It's the reason movies like Coco are still on Netflix and not Disney plus. You can't just renege on a previous contract because you started your own streaming service. These things take time.

I was unclear, I meant that the restrictions are artificial; based on contracts and in-company reasoning, not that the law prevents them from letting users in other nations buy subscriptions. Yes, they can't reneg on contracts, but the only reason Disney+ isn't available in other nations is entirely of their own making, and they could let Ukranians or Vietnamese into Disney+ whenever they choose (aside from existing agreed upon obligations), there is no national-legal restriction.

While you are right Disney+ could open everywhere, it makes no business sense to launch in some countries with underwhelming media libraries especially when it's the crux of the Disney marketing.

Many countries that have "Media Laws" that define when movies can be broadcasted on streaming services.

> They own the rights

They don't, and they are tied into long term exclusivity contracts in many territories.

It's pretty well established that in the UK for example they can't launch the service until the exclusive first pay window distribution deal they have with Sky on all the Marvel titles expires, and that's pretty obviously on the 31st March 2020.

As I mentioned to someone else, I was unclear. I meant there's no legislative reason then can't let foreign users into Disney+, contractual obligations are agreements that expire, as opposed to a statute prohibition on being open to other customers.

A lot of it is totally new content; how could they not write up the contracts a few months ago to allow global distro?

About a tenth of 1% is totally new content. There's really a couple of documentaries, two features and the Mandalorian. And that's it.

They couldn't launch the service with just that - Apple are struggling a lot and basically giving away their service and they still have more than that.

This. I do what I can but if shows I watch suddenly end in ‘my region’ while it continues in another then I will find a way. It is the internet and it is global; the old way of regions needs to go; it has been gone for a while for but I want to pay for my Netflix to be the same as the US (etc) one. It is not though; I do not watch too much but when ‘they’ get me hooked and then run seasons behind another season, well... I was explained why it is that way, but, like you, that wears thin these days; they had at least a decade to fix it for new content but they keep doing it.

Copyright law should have a way to allow the content be shared for free if the copyright holder block the distribution themselves with no good reason.

In some countries, for some media, this is allowed.

Of course the USA tries to prevent this with all its might.

Define 'good reason'.

Anything where they (the copyright holders) provide content to one group (region, etc) for $X and you are willing to pay at least $X as well but cannot.

That isn't a good reason.

Yeah, reading back it is not a reason at all; just a solution I would agree with (as human and copyright holder).

Why do you believe you're entitled to content that the content owner doesn't want to offer you?

Practically speaking, yes, people will pirate it if it's not easily available otherwise. But that doesn't make it morally right.

>Why do you believe you're entitled to content that the content owner doesn't want to offer you?

pirating something that you can't even legally purchase is about as close to a victimless crime as it gets. If anyone actually feels guilty about this they can donate the value to the against malaria foundation and have done the world a net good

honestly, I find the IP mentality of large companies like Disney immoral who hoard IP like a dragon hoards a lair of gold. I'd be in favour of 'use it or lose it'

> pirating something that you can't even legally purchase is about as close to a victimless crime as it gets.

I dunno. I’d say pirating something the owner isn’t willing to provide you at any price is at least as victimful (and a greater offense against the victim) than doing so for something that they are willing to sell you, but at an unacceptable price.

As much as I hate copyright if someone doesn’t want to sell something to you or licence it or share it they are under no obligation to. I’m sorry but why do you feel you have a right to any content? It’s just a movie/tv show/book.

Thou as a write this I consider the implications of it was educational and only available to a nation or race and not having it would put one at a disadvantage ala scientific papers...

Copyright is a specific legal right granted to authors, with the (ostensible) intent of balancing the rights of authors against the rights of readers. Copying a bunch of bits is legal by default, but we specifically outlaw copying certain bits under certain specific conditions. Copyright is not unconditional, universal or perpetual. In the EU, there is an element of "use it or lose it" due to the Orphan Works Directive - if the copyright holder cannot be located, then national libraries have the right to digitise and distribute the orphan work.

In the digital age, there is a perfectly reasonable case to be made for some kind of "unavailability exception" to protect the rights of readers in poorly-served markets and prevent anti-competitive hoarding of copyrighted works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_Works_Directive

The thing is; they do want to sell it to me; it will appear in a few months/years. At least in case of films/shows. So that ‘the copyright holder does not want’ is not true; they just signed contracts with actors, writers etc for a certain region to pay less and/or get more %.

You're arguing "you don't have a [legal/moral] right" (which is true)

They're arguing "it's a victimless crime" (which is also true)

These are related things, but they aren't contradictory

Copying information is already victimless. No one is harmed or wronged by magnetizing some disks or tape a certain way in your house.

Nobody owns content as ownership does not expire. People are incentivized to create content with a limited monopoly of finite duration. However, this means when they fail to licence it and thus chose to forgo revenue there is zero moral obligation to respect the monopoly.

Watterson famously refused to license Calvin and Hobbes. That does not give you the moral right to start selling C&H branded content.

Jumping from pirating for personal consumption to selling someone else's IP is a bit much, don't you think?

It’s kind of an interesting edge case.

Trademarks don’t have set expiration dates, yet 1/4 of Disney’s toys are for someone else’s original IP. Snow White, Peter Pan, etc and nobody seems to have a problem with this. In fact the oldest US trademark in use fall under the same heading with a Biblical figure Samson wrestling a lion.

And in fact Trademarks do go away without Defence. Which means they can be abandoned at which point it’s fine to use em.

No one's talking about reselling Disney+ content.

Well, I would I agree that watching and not paying is wrong, but I am paying. In the end the show will appear on one of the streaming services I subscribe to and pay for. Like in the olden days I downloaded shows because of this region crap and then bought them on dvd when they came out even though I already watched them. The content owner apparently does want to offer it to me, just not here (sometimes I can drive for one hour across the border and then I can get it; how insane is that; also how is that different than switchting on a proxy of my neighbouring country?) and that is not acceptable (to me and many others).