Hulu to release the UK from geotarding hell – how about the rest of the world?

I totally get that this whole geotarding thing can’t be placed directly at the feet of companies like Hulu and Pandora. I understand that they are having to play nice with rights holders around the world and some of them just don’t want to play nice at all. So it was good to hear today that Hulu looks to be cutting deals with all the players involved in television broadcasting in the UK and hopefully by September those lucky sods in the UK will be able to enjoy a great service.

However this still begs the question – what about the rest of us poor saps who will still find ourselves stuck behind the geotarding wall?

What really gets me riled up is that services like Hulu and Pandora don’t explain in plain English and not some legalese doubletalk as to why the rest of the world can’t use the service. We saw the same thing when Skype said that their App Store application for the iPhone would, or would not, be available in Canada but with limitations, like being able to make outgoing calls over VoIP. The strange part of this is that we can use Skype in Canada on our computers and buy Skype minutes with Canadian dollars.

All we got from Skype was that it was due to patent problems. This is slightly more than we get from Hulu or Pandora, who say it’s because they couldn’t come to copyright agreements. Well you know what? this is all pure and unadulterated bullshit.

We are supposed to be in an era where social media is the great equalizer but it seems sometimes that when it come to issues that cause companies to have to ‘legitimately’ geotard their products the power of social media gets forgotten. Much of the argument around the reasons for geotarding revolves around copyright issues or problems being able to target advertising properly. Well the second issue is just plain stupid and really shouldn’t even be a consideration.

The first though is something that can be changed – if the companies were honest with us as to exactly why they are having to geotard a country; or countries. Say for example the problem with Hulu being able to open up to Canada is due to the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunication Commission) then tell us that. Or perhaps it’s because the monopolizing television and cable broadcasters are the ones causing the problems then tell us that.

Then bring the so-called power of social media to bear on the problem. Don’t hide behind neatly couched legalese. Call on the people – because I would bet dollars to donuts that if we knew exactly what the problem was there we would be able bring what pressure we can to see changes are made – or at least try our damndest.

Instead we are treated like mindless consumers with no voice in finding solutions to the problems which says a lot about what companies really think about this whole social media thing.

[picture courtesy of Telegraph Online because I live and Canada and wouldn’t be able to get a screenshot of a show playing on Hulu.]