I thought the internet has lowered the walls separating the world and shallowed the ocean dividing the world. Until recently.
“This clip is not available in the country you live in.”
This is the first time in a while I get discriminated based on the region. How exciting. The last time was…yes, about three years ago, when I was a Facebook fan of a Canadian rock band. I got a link in a message like “Check out our recent live show,” then clicked and saw the same screen. Of course, the rudeness made me sad and angry enough to quit being their Facebook fan.
If there is an inherent copyright problem in the material, then the clip shouldn’t have been uploaded on YouTube, or Niconico Douga, or whatever site. But this incident seems to have different reasons.
We at North Shore Products make films as well, so we have our share of philosophy about copyrights. However, we have little sympathy for corporate bodies only remotely related to actual artists who are skimming the cream off someone else’s creation. I don’t know who it is in this case, but would guess it’s either JASRAC or some Japanese record company. If you have ever talked to them about music licensing fees for a DVD, for instance, you know that they both are greedy copyright mafias.
“Music has no border,” said somebody whose name I forgot. In reality, it can’t be farther from the truth. In the time when industrial structures, labor force, culture and even national spots in Olympic games have become borderless, what on earth are they doing? The same goes with so many things, including bike distributorship as well. In the world where anything can be parallel imported, local distributorship is no longer a major right you can be so proud of. It just means nothing unless you think about the way to provide the best experience to customers utilizing it.