Via Doc Searls I came across this long - but interesting - post on the weird "borders" of the internet. You stumble on this when you travel, and discover that sites aren't universally accessible, or when you just sit in your living room and try to buy content that you know has been released in, say, the UK, but not in the US:

Excellent, or so it seemed, until I read the fine print. As it does with its iPhone, Apple “appliances” its services to geopolitical strictures inherited from the pre-Internet age and to a jingoistic concept of national identity quite contrary to the expansive spirit of This American Life and to the “worldwide” as in Worldwide Web. Podcasts of This American Life are available for purchase and download via iTunes only from IP addresses within the boundaries of the United States. Also, even within the US, Apple does not accept for payment credit cards issued by overseas banks. Last, even when listeners from within the US attempts a purchase a credit card issued by a US bank, Apple will not sell them podcasts if their iTunes Stores accounts were originally registered from abroad.

This reminded me of region codes for DVD players:

The commercial DVD player specification requires that a player to be sold in a given place not play discs encoded for a different region (region 0 discs are not restricted). The purpose of this is to allow motion picture studios to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and, especially, price, according to the region. Many DVD players are or can be modified to be region-free, allowing playback of all discs.

I was explaining region codes to my daughter the other day, and her jaw just dropped. These kinds of restrictions made no sense 20 years ago, but we played along - we didn't have any choice in the matter, and most people didn't travel enough for it to matter. Now? Travel is more extensive, and there are plenty of extra-legal ways to acquire content if vendors are too stupid to offer it to you in a rational way. There's going to be a huge settling of accounts in this area, because the immovable object (the copyright holders) is in the process of meeting the irresistable force (younger people and torrents). I'm not sure how it will all play out, but I expect the current ugliness to persist for awhile.

Now Listening to: Surfin' USA by The Beach Boys from: Sounds of Summer - The Very Best of The Beach Boys

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