Geoblocking Revisited

I came across an interesting article by Daisy Whitney "International Market a Growing Opportunity for Web Series". In the article, she wrote:

"The international distribution strategy for “Gemini Division” underscores a growing opportunity for Web producers. Licensing a Web show to a foreign country is an additional revenue stream for ad-supported shows—and it’s often the one that helps them turn a profit."

The majority of her article explained out the reasoning behind this point though she did add the caveat that international windowing wasn't for everyone with the following illustration :

When producer-actor Felicia Day partnered with Microsoft-Xbox last month to sponsor her Web show “The Guild,” the deal called for distribution in Xbox regions worldwide with the show subtitled in eight languages.

'The Internet is global. Why treat it like old media?' she (Felicia Day) asked. 'If someone from France can click and read the text on your site, why lock them from the video?'

“The Internet is global. Why treat it like old media?”

Though the illustration was a side note to Daisy Whitney's main point, I thought that Felicia Day's question was an interesting one to examine. I too would love to see global release of new media.

However, I don't think the question does the issue justice. Particularly so because geoblocking appears to closely parallel DVD region coding which also:

1) Targets a global audience and,
2) The primary reason for limiting DVD release by region was return on investment.

One could ask the question, "DVD players are global, why treat them like old media by limiting them according to region?" (I Love DVD has an informative article on DVD region coding.)

I think tiered international release (Geoblocking) does ultimately boil down to return on investment as well as philosophy. However, with new media there is a significant new element over and against DVD distribution and region coding. That new element being that small startups can now produce and compete at a level that they couldn't in the past.

In this new playing field,

Small startups without connections to those who broker international distribution rights may be more likely to release globally to the web.

Larger production companies with connections and who utilize prominent actors/actresses (higher overhead), may be more likely to release in a tiered international fashion.

Ultimately, both philosophies may be able to consistently achieve profit due to the Long Tail marketability of new media. If a production company can consistently carve out a niche portion of the global international audience in a way that provides for return on investment they will succeed for the long haul.

So far Electric Farm Entertainment is doing just that.

That said, I think the Holy Grail is to come up with or work toward a method that:

1) Releases high end content globally to as large an audience as possible at the same time and,
2) Generates consistent return on investment over the long term.

Most likely there is more than one way to achieve this. Any ideas out there?

It would be interesting to further examine DVD region coding and its pros and cons in light of geoblocking (or the friendlier sounding phrase "tiered international distribution"). Anyone have any links to articles on the subject?