[LINK] Australia, Second Class Citizens, according to EMI

[Scott Howard]

On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 6:53 AM, Tom Koltai <tomk at unwired.com.au> wrote:

> This content hasn’t been taken down. It is filtered for au IP numbers.
> Although piracy is often used as the excuse to put the smaller guys
> (competitors to the larger labels) out of business.
>

As I'm sure you're aware Tom, this has absolutely nothing to do with
"second class" citizens or piracy - it's simply about distribution rights.
EMI does not have the distribution rights for that particular video in
certain countries, and thus they ask Youtube not to display it in those
countries.

This is no different to the fact that despite being an Australia citizen
and an Australia tax payer I am unable to view the Australian Governments
own broadcasting companies video streaming app (ie,  ABC iView) because I
am not located in Australia.  I don't consider that the Australian
Government is treating me as a second class citizen as a result of that - I
recognize that it's because they do not have the rights to distribute some
of their content outside of Australia, and thus they limit traffic to
Australians only except when they know they will not be broadcasting any
such traffic (eg, during election coverage, or even during the recent
Qantas shutdown).


Either way, I stand by my original comment, "Australia is being treated as
> a second class country" by EMI's copyright legal eagles...." and we
> shouldnt put up with it.


What would you have them do, Tom?  Illegally distribute content that they
do not own the rights for?  Rights which are owned by another company -
possibly even an Australia company?  Perhaps your time would be better
spent finding out who owns the distribution rights for this song in
Australia, and asking them to put it on YouTube.

  Scott