Dear rest of the world…

Either it’s globalization or not, you have to decide it at last. Today I was reading an article on Wikipedia about Game of Thrones. The best TV series ever! I came across one sentence that made me think, well actually I had this thought a long time ago, but I wanted to talk about it in public.

Anticipation for Game of Thrones was described by media as very high. It was estimated to be the most pirated TV series of 2012, a reflection of its popularity as well as its limited availability.

The reason why it’s availability is limited and why it was THE most pirated TV series of 2012 is simple – copyrights. Entertainment industry (the big E) is still burying it’s own feet in the ground and does not want to think or talk about it. Times have changed, everybody says that the E industry is old and stagnant and I’m going to join the public rant.

Globalization is happening right now, it’s not going to stop, the rules of the game have changed. One thing that’s stopping big E to deliver content to long tail countries are the copyright agencies, with whom it has to sort all the copyrights in every country – of course it’s a big investment, but they are there only because big E asked for it. Now it’s biting back, and since the big E can’t deliver content legally, it’s being distributed via piracy, causing economic damage to the big E itself, which might as well be larger than the investments needed to sort things out in the first place.

I have one example from my life, that made me particulary angry. Me and my girlfriend were looking around on our Xbox for some new stuff, like movies for rent or DLC. We came across some comedy that was available in HD through Zune for rent. We wached the preview, we liked it, so I wen’t into my account, bought some Microsoft points and went for the rent option, just to be left with the notice:

This content is not available in your region.

This made me angry. I paid my money to buy some silly internet currency, which I was willing to spend on a movie, but I couldn’t. It left me with a bitter feeling though, that a company as big as Microsoft cannot deliver the content for me. They can deliver a console, a game on a DVD, but the can not deliver the movie. Then why do they even bother advertising this content if I’m not even able to get it?

On the other hand we have a great team that’s been modern from the start – The South Park. There you have it – it’s accessible from any country, it has a full catalog of every season and every episode. And only sometimes there’s a message that an episode is not available because of some copyright issues, although it get’s sorted in a short period of time (I think longest was a few months for some episode, featuring some cameos). How do they do it? The have 3 ads in the middle of each episode, that’s distributed geographically, almost like Facebook does deliver ads specifically to a target audience. Of course, in my country it’s usually just Comedy Central self-promotional videos, but still.

Now back to globalization. If you can deliver content to anybody over the internet with ads, then remember:

• Coca-Cola is Coca-Cola in every country of the world
• British Airways fly everywhere
• Samsung, LG, Apple, Motorola – is (almost) everywhere
• Kellogg’s is everywhere

The same ad can work on any audience in any country, and I’m willing to watch some stupid ad just to get my content, and I’m willing to pay to get some ad free content, just DELIVER IT TO ME FFS! The funny thing with you, silly america, is that you’r audience has TiVo and similar devices, which allow you to skip ads – it’s ironic, don’t you think?

So be global or don’t share your shit in my Facebook, digg.com or any other public internet medium, so that I ain’t left with a bitter feeling of living so close, yet so far from the goodies.

Sincerely Yours,
Gusts