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Lazy solution. They should form a commission whose work is to ensure that a larger chunk of European taxes go to studios, channels, film commissions, software devs, etc. so they can come up with a Euro+ app that carries only Europe's finest content throughout the world.

Or European studios could produce something people will pay to watch. Then, they wouldn't need handouts from the government.
 
What a stupid arbitrary rule, that'd be like the US saying all streaming services around the world have to have at least 30% US content to stream in the US (OK they do but...) Just sounds like an unfair rule designed to profit European production companies, This wasn't created from fairness this was created from envy.
 
So license some French films and a few BBC dramas, those are the only things coming out of Europe worth watching anyway.
 
This reminds of when I was living in Canada. I was surprised when I first signed up for cable there, you could choose a custom package with 10 or 20 channels BUT at least half the channels you chose had to be Canadian channels (even though they were a small percentage of the total selection, mostly US channels and several from other countries).
 
Why not tax these foreign services and provide a tax credit for a share of the local production. It's not like it's free for these companies to stream content to these customers (not to mention pay royalties, licensing and other stuff), they all cost something.

Forcing 30% of content to be produced in the local region doesn't make any sense if the service already have all of the production studios set up in their own country or share them with other studios.

Provide tax or incentives to build out the production industry in the local regions.

Because politicians.
 
I wanted the UK to stay in the EU but proposals like this make understand why people wanted to leave. It is petty and unwarranted interference and the worst possible result (banning the services) would clearly have no benefit whatsoever to EU consumers.

Good content is now available, (often dubbed into various languages) from all over the world. To force European content that few people would watch seems to me to be completely pointless.

The UK does, without a doubt, produce some very good programmes and films. Often, until recently, these films would be partly funded by the EU but a lot of them are not going to attract huge audiences. They often tend to be films concerning social or political issues rather than being Hollywood style action and adventure and where women wake up every morning with perfect hair and still wearing their makeup and the men wake up having apparently had a shave while asleep! I like the social issue type films, and the European film makers are good at them as well, but I can't see them getting a massive audience. This is something the EU should leave to the market and not indulge in nanny state interference.
 
Indeed, no surprise the UK wants to leave and can't get a deal. The EU is interfering in areas that don't require interference. The original concept of the EC was solid and facilitate trade, but what has morphed into the EU is crossing the line. And the funny thing is, we actually pay them to come up with this kind of nonsense.
 
Because it's selling its service in Europe. Apple TV+ can offer whatever it wants in the US market. If it wants to serve Europe, it needs to meet Europe's needs within that market.
there's a difference to EU politician's needs and EU consumer's needs
 
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As a European (swe) I don’t like this.

Maybe Sweden can see it as an opportunity to sell "Nöjesmassakern" to a broader European audience?
There appears to be crossed wires here.

What they are saying is that content produced in the UK counts as "European Content" on Apple+.

However, the EU does not have the ability to ban Apple TV+ in the UK, as the UK is no longer part of the EU.

So basically - British shows count towards the proposed quote. However, even if it is banned, it cannot be banned by the EU in the UK.

---

I'm generally pro-EU, however this one is ridiculous (as is a lot of their tech stuff)

How about Crown dependencies like the the Bailiwick of Jersey?

I am thinking about Bergerac with John Nettles. :cool:
 
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AppleTV+ barely has content as it is. I don’t want MY AppleTV+stuffed with crap EU shows they can get anywhere in the EU.

Tehran was brilliant but those “Israelis” don’t count.
 
Easy: just churn out a load of reality TV.
Plus one or two arty productions to let the great and good keep feeling superior at their sophisticated dinner parties and off those damn colonial owned streaming companies’ backs.
 
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I mean of course a majority of content on steaming services is from the US since most media content is produced in the US. If anything they should be encouraging more European productions with tax credits and other incentives, not mandating the streaming services...
That’s not the EU way. You ban, whine and cry to make someone else do it for you.
 
So there are really only two options to change that, either the US produces less movies or Europe produces more movies people want to watch. All I know is this law is not good, streaming services will have to cut some content just to meet some dumb ratio.
I guess they could produce local content once, keep it forever and trim old foreign content when there is new (foreign aka American) content.

For example, Apple has 10 movies, 3 European and 7 American. When a new American movie premieres, it replaces an older American movie in Europe only so Apple could always keep that percentage. Would suck for the consumer that’s for sure.
 
Production cost ≠ language version cost, these two are from different planets, especially when you count in the different scale of marketing budgets, which have already been paid for by the theatrical release. Money comes to money, not necessarily better content.

I am confused by the EU. I keep hearing that it is a single market of 445 million or so people, yet you now argue that U.S. content producers have lower production costs because they can deliver it to a country of 330 million? Seems odd. You say production cost is not the same as localization cost, to which I respond that production cost has nothing to do with market size. Nothing stops European companies from producing films that are designed to target broad audiences.

What is funny is that you get the reality of film financing completely for a large number of Hollywood projects. The films are financed by pre-selling the international rights, leaving all the risk to the U.S. market. An approach available in reverse to European productions.

A movie in French will not work in the English speaking market because English speakers are too unaccustomed to reading subtitles. Like I said, not a level playing field.

Again, I am confused. I understand that there are 280 million French speakers in the world, so that still seems like a pretty big market. Americans prefer dubbed films, as to many other territories. You say localization is inexpensive, why would a French film dubbed in English not appeal to American audiences? In France, over 77% of people 35 or older watch foreign language content dubbed into French. Probably a bit lower than the number for the U.S., but not enough to matter. The real problem is not the language, it is the content. Very few French films are of interest to international audiences. Same goes true for most non-British films out of Europe.

Also, Netflix is not the same as Apple or Disney, Netflix has a lot of regional content and only licences the most cost-effective content for European markets, Apple and Disney own the rights to most of their content, so licence fees are not really a issue for them.

Netflix has content it owns and content it licenses. Apple so far has chosen to either own all its content or license it on a worldwide basis, particularly to avoid the licensing rights mess that Netflix has. You say license fees are not an issue because it is not your money. It costs more (often a lot more) to maintain world wide rights.

I don’t care for 90% of any streaming service’s catalogue but alas, I am forced to pay for it to watch the other stuff. If you don’t like it, buy dvds, right?
You are not ”forced” to pay for any of it. You choose to do so. If you do not think that the content you want to watch is worth the price, you can certainly purchase some of it directly (packaged media or online delivery). Some of it cannot be purchased that way. However, nothing forces you to pay for any of it.

That is the difference. This is simply a tax, but one that the bureaucrats do not want to admit they are charging, as their citizens would hate it. If they want to add a 30% tax on the cost of Amazon, Apple, Disney and Netflix’s services, let them be upfront about it, so that their citizens know what they are paying.
But since you also claimed that European content is dirt cheap to licence, that’s great, problem solved. 🤷
No, I said they should license the cheapest content without regard to its age or interest, so that they hit their “local content requirement”. They can get tens of thousands of hours of local variety shows and high school sports so that they can meet that requirement that 30% of their available content is locally produced. No one any where might watch it, but until they require that 30% of what people watch is of European, it will not matter.
 
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I guess they could produce local content once, keep it forever and trim old foreign content when there is new (foreign aka American) content.
Or they could not produce any local content and just license the cheapest crap they can find to pad the catalog.
For example, Apple has 10 movies, 3 European and 7 American. When a new American movie premieres, it replaces an older American movie in Europe only so Apple could always keep that percentage. Would suck for the consumer that’s for sure.
Better: Apple has 10 movies they make. They find a 6 episodes of a Walloon language show from the 1950s and poof they have hit their requirement. They want to add another 10 movies? They find 6 more episodes of Romansh TV. They can also add Slovenian, Croatian, and other tiny inexpensive niche content.
 
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Most of you're "movie stars" are actually Canadian.
Nah not most....and the word is YOUR.
No problem with Australian actors I take it?
Just because I didn't mention it doesn't mean I don't have a problem about it.
And FYI, for example all of the Star Wars movies were made in the UK.
Then the complaint in the article is even more full of crap. Your post is telling the EU that the U.S already pumps money into their country. Thanks for confirming my point. 😂
 
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Why not use tools to encourage more high quality content rather than mandating through some arbitrary percentage? Having 10% outstanding content is much better than 50% mediocre.
 
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Why not use tools to encourage more high quality content rather than mandating through some arbitrary percentage? Having 10% outstanding content is much better than 50% mediocre.
Because this has nothing to do with quality, this is simply a tax on successful American companies that they hope will just give in to them. They just want these companies to subsidize their production and eat the cost.

Given that Apple has world wide rights to all their content, they could choose not to care about people accessing it via VPN and then offer the product for less money in the UK and the US, but charge more in Europe and make it very clear why.
 
There are many reasons for the EU to do this.

This is simply a retaliation against the US for not paying a single dime in taxes for services provided in the EU. Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft et al. are paying way too little vat and profit taxes.

Or the other way around: if you are born on an American plane, never had anything to do with the US, you WILL pay income taxes in the US. The US is forcing banks around the world to refuse services to those people.

Or this one: the investments in US movie/series production are so big that there is no chance for small innovative companies to grow. The big bullies are buying up every single potentially successful business and are throttling innovation. Look at what Facebook is facing with lawsuits in the US at the moment.
 
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Nah not most....and the word is YOUR.

Just because I didn't mention it doesn't mean I don't have a problem about it.

Then the complaint in the article is even more full of crap. Your post is telling the EU that the U.S already pumps money into their country. Thanks for confirming my point. 😂
The UK is not their [EU] country. Get your facts straight ;)
 
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I don't really get this requirement.... Can someone ELI5?

So people in the EU pay for a subscription service for content.
EU's Logic says we will STOP our people from paying for things they want unless you make more shows in Europe?

This world is ******* crazy.
-How about if people don't like the content, they won't pay for the subscription?
-How about if the EU want EU based shows, the EU gives tax cuts to production companies so a European based steaming network is born to compete with Netflix.

I interpret this as a child moaning that they want what I have and they don't want to do get it themselves they just want to take mine.

The EU are a bunch of kids.
 
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There are many reasons for the EU to do this.

This is simply a retaliation against the US for not paying a single dime in taxes for services provided in the EU. Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft et al. are paying way too little vat and profit taxes.

Or the other way around: if you are born on an American plane, never had anything to do with the US, you WILL pay income taxes in the US. The US is forcing banks around the world to refuse services to those people.

Or this one: the investments in US movie/series production are so big that there is no chance for small innovative companies to grow. The big bullies are buying up every single potentially successful business and are throttling innovation. Look at what Facebook is facing with lawsuits in the US at the moment.
The US doesn’t pay taxes elsewhere so no retaliation required for that. Taxes are paid by people and legal entities. Those legal entities are subjected to rules and they operate by the rules. If the EU doesn’t like the double taxation rules it wants it members to adhere to, then it should change those guidance and rules. You can’t blame a legal entity for following the rules and choose to domicile in the most benecial location.

and no services aren’t refused to US citizens that is nonsense. Rules are simply applied when are one but reside elsewhere. Just like other rules are applied to other people.
 
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