I always hated the idea of Geo-blocking...so go get'em EU!
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/05/eu-goes-after-valve-for-geo-blocking-steam-activation-codes/ (https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/05/eu-goes-after-valve-for-geo-blocking-steam-activation-codes/)
Is this the same EU that is trying to find a way to enforce copyright by slapping the average person who re-posts a link to a news story?
My wife put a DvD into the machine, and it wouldn't play. Upon some pretty deep investigating, it is from Region 2...and the USA is not in Region 2. She wondered why the Amazon deal was so good. She purchased a DvD which, according to our Blue Ray player, cannot work due to "region restrictions."
I don't see this as any different from what Valve is doing. They're trying to maximize revenue by having certain areas pay more than others.
That's it. It enables them to sell games at an affordable rate to poorer countries where the exchange rate and the local wage would make it too costly to buy a game. For countries like Australia, who is small and who's dollar is not that strong. We tend to get fleeced. At least blu ray regions are a little more palatable.
If gold was the universal currency and exchange rates did not exist then real free trade would likely be a thing. Because you know, the perception and speculation would be taken out of the equation. A spade would in fact be a spade the world over. I know this is a pipe dream and the real world works differently though. You need an exchange rate because of the different ways in which countries are run and by which coins are minted. Or at least you did when we used to use real money. Economies must be segregated from each other.
Quote from: Destraex on April 05, 2019, 04:51:19 PM
Is this the same EU that is trying to find a way to enforce copyright by slapping the average person who re-posts a link to a news story?
It's a good way to suppress wrongthink and enforce conformity. Anyone who makes a meme criticizing crappy leftist politicians or policies can be gone after if their pics contain anything copyrighted, even a still scene from a movie. Fair use doctrine is out the window if the government or big business doesn't like what it's used for. And, as you pointed out, people who link to favored news articles in order to criticize them or link to disfavored articles to support them can now be gone after.
People should be very scared by this.
Quote from: Ubercat on April 07, 2019, 09:43:49 AM
People should be very scared by this.
Scared? They'll have signs made welcoming the suppression.