Imagine that you go to Marks & Spencer or, what­ever, pick a few things you want to buy, proceed to checkout, get asked about your place of resi­dence by the cashier and when you reply some­thing like “Lyon, France” (or, again, wherever), the cashier glances at you sideways like and tells you: “oh, well, we don’t sell to you lot,” and puts away the stuff you wanted.

Now imagine the amount of discrimination law­suits [the store] would face with such an action. Imagine the outcry.

This kind of denial is a reality for many that live in countries outside of the US. It could be rogue dictatorships, countries with little regard for human rights, or just ‘normal’ countries that are not the US of A. Like France; like Sweden. It is a denial of service that greets these people when they try to access content on the websites of global corporations like Fox, NBC, ABC, (ex: Hulu), Google (ex: YouTube), CBS, or small companies like Letterhead Fonts. The fact that both large and small companies are doing this shows that it’s a spreading issue. And as the Web shifts more towards rich(er) media content, it’s pretty safe to assume that the incentive to use this form of denial of service will become even bigger. So, why are we doing the same thing? To show our US audience what it feels like. To give you a taste of our Internet.

Showtime (a CBS company) lays down the law... (click to enlarge)

Let me be the first to say that I understand why this kind of access denial is used by media companies, type foundries and others that put out copyright protected material. The Web was built on the concept of sharing. Information sharing, knowledge sharing, content sharing. Ever since its inception, the Web and its content has generally been regarded as “free”. But the content that is put on the Web today is increas­ingly of a commercial nature and as such must be protected against all kinds of rights violations, illegal copying or redistribution, theft etc. Distribution of content on the Internet is now done using models that weren’t devised for global channels like the Internet. The Web is global but distribution models and their required sets of rights regulations are for all intents and purposes still local in nature. Movie A is distri­buted under a contract that only applies to regions X, Y and Z. In order to spread the word about it to as many possible buyers as we can though, we put it on the Internet—but when doing so we have to restrict it, so that it only can be accessed by visitors from the aforementioned regions.

Catch 22? No. A gated community. That is what hulu.com, youtube.com, letterheadfonts.com and probably many more in actual fact are. Commun­ities that only some are given full access to.

In fact, the gated community model that all those sites have chosen is worse – anyone can view the sites and see the kind of content they offer, but the second that someone from the wrong region tries to sample the really interesting stuff, slamdown comes the gate. Look but don’t touch. You can’t even buy. Only look. Which in reality is probably the worst kind of teasing or baiting there is and these companies should be bitch-slapped for even thinking of doing that. It doesn’t matter that the reason for doing this is understandable—hell, it might even be one we sympathize with—it is not a good way of doing things. Not in general, and certainly not on the Web.

Until there is a change in attitude from US corporations and organisations (and we know it’s far from all US corporations and organisations that do this), the contents of this site are not available to US residents. Because they, like us, live in the wrong country.

Silly? Of course this is silly. It’s a statement, a getback, a display of our reality. And statements are often perceived as silly by the ones it affects, justly or not.