Why are there borders on the internet?

[Saint]

Perhaps someone with a superior understanding of internet business politics can explain this: I can't buy music from the Swedish iTunes store. This is a problem. Also, this does not make sense. Why would such a border be created? Why can I not purchase this music? I want to give this business my money. The item I want is not in the Canadian iTunes store; it is in the Swedish iTunes store.

It seems unlikely that Sweden does not want my money. If I order a physical copy of this album, it can be shipped from Sweden--so this music can be acquired from Sweden, but not digitally, which is logically the easiest and best way to distribute music overseas. Someone, explain this nonsense.

Also, what's this locational viewing rights crap? I always get this "Ah, you're in Canada! This content is not available there, jerk!" It's the internet; it's available everywhere--and you're giving it away for free, so why the restriction?

 

[Carcharodon]

Fight the power.

 

[ScottWilliams]

It's just the man trying to keep you down!

 

[doih]

It's probably international copyright agreements with artists. The artist's music (let's call him Mats Sundin) is not licensed to be sold in Canada, at least not via iTunes. Whoever is agent for Mr. Sundin in Sweden has not made a deal with iTunes to bring his music to Canada/N. America. It's most likely his record company that has chosen not to do that, perhaps because he is relatively unknown outside Sweden and the promotional costs etc. would be higher.

For the same reason you can't buy a DVD in the UK and play it in a DVD player in the US (aside from the region/encoding differences). I think Dan Slott posted about this when there was that thread about downloading comics.

It's annoying- a lot of people complain to Apple about not being able to buy UK/Japan/whatever stuff, but it really has nothing to do with Apple. Copyright is one of the most jumbled areas of law and it probably won't change anytime soon.

 

[Watson]

^That, basically.

Canada has the added fun of having Canadian Content requirements which, as far as I understand it, means that American online content gets blocked because it's too much of hassle to clear everything here. Some networks like Comedy and Teletoon have licenses and therefore you are able to watch some Comedy Central content (like the Daily Show) on the Comedy Network website.