Content rights for specific regions do make sense at this time in history. For better or worse we have the notion of sovereignty and this is at the core of the restrictions. Most countries feel a need to provide opportunities for their citizens in various endeavors. Unfortunately, while the notion of free movement of people is appealing what we now have is the free movement of capital with the less free movement of people. Unless you only want he US to have cultural industries there aren't too many options available to countries other than to have restricted licenses for cultural activities. The internet has not made a global one world community. The whole subject is very complicated and getting rid of countries is hardly about to happen.
I don't advocate getting rid of countries or blending cultures. Far from it.
There is plenty of demand for non-US culture in the world. I think regional restrictions do more to prevent other countries from making content, rather than promote it. For example, I know members of the Russian community here in the US that would love to buy access to Russian TV channels for a reasonable price - but various regional restrictions prohibit it. Theoretically, a small Russian content creator would make more money if they had access to the entire world, and distributors would make more money from ads if they knew the content was being consumed by the entire Russian community, regardless of border.
I believe the free exchange of culture, without concern for borders, would actually promote and develop all cultures. A restrictive system tends to favor one culture, free exchange makes it possible for smaller less rich cultures to thrive.
Also, specifically I disagree with your statement that the sovereignty is at the core of regional content restrictions. That's total nonsense.
The core of regional content restrictions is maximizing profits. Content owners make more money if they slice up the world into regions and sell the rights to each region to different distributors in each region. They make more money this way than selling exclusive rights to one distributor for the entire world; and they make more money this way than selling rights to many distributors for the entire world. The sum of the value of many small parts is greater than the value of the whole. That is at the core of regional content restriction.
The fact that the world is already carved up into regions merely makes doing the restricting convenient. They could just as easily make up their own lines, borders, and restrictions. Take the MLB blackout policy as an example - it's a regional restriction policy where some of the regions have no bearing or relation to actual state borders.
A content owner can theoretically sell the distribution rights to all towns in the world that begin with odd letters of the local alphabet to Distributor A, and the rights to all towns in the world that begin with even letters of the local alphabet to Distributor B. A content owner can theoretically sell the distribution rights to 24 distributors based on 15 degree latitudinal segments. It would be a mess, but it wouldn't be legally different than basing the distinction on country lines. To me, all of these options are equally silly.
Indeed, with the Berne Convention, most countries copyright laws are pretty similar. There is no modern need to have regional distinctions other than to maximize profits.
And to be clear, I'm not against maximizing profits. However, when that is the only reason to do something, it should be critically balanced against the negative externalities. Public policy dictates that desire for profits shouldn't give way to ridiculous outcomes. We certainly decided that monopolies are generally bad, even though it's the best way to maximize profits. These regional contracts are bad public policy and should be done away with.
