It's telling that a website that intentionally closes itself off to all non-U.S. traffic has been named Associated Press's website of the year.
What does this say about the future of media online?
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Heh! I got "This video is not available in your country" from YouTube the other day.
I have to agree with this story because if it weren't for Hulu I would of had to download these shows off torrents. The way I get around the IP blocking is by using a VPN. works great, doesn't slow anything down. Besides the 30sec timeouts for ads its great.
I just dont' understand who a website can be site of the year considering that.
A website that broadcasts tv shows is hardly original, creative nor really useful. Aside from slightly lowering the number of illegal downloads by torrents, I don't see how it is informative, entertaining, educational, or whatever attribute that should be linked to the chosen site.
Disapointing choice, to say the least.
Whenever I get those "video not available in your country"-type messages, I'd always assumed it was because rights holders here -- for a lot of the stuff I like, that's Canwest Global -- were being sticklers, rather than the US sites.
It's both, really. In the case of Hulu, they just close off anyone outside the U.S. until they figure out the rights situation. Since they have so many overseas distribution deals for their TV shows, it's an unfortunate necessity.
In other cases, like Comedy Central/Comedy Network, they came to a licensing deal that redirects (badly) all Canadian traffic from the U.S. site to the Canadian one.
In Canada, we have access to House and SNL through Global, Jon Stewart and Grey's Anatomy through CTV, etc., but it's through the Canadian sites, which means Americans and Canadians can't share URLs for clips, nor can we enjoy Hulu's interface.
This is croporate.
Croporations have been operating on a totally orthogonal plane of reality for a while, lately…
... and of course, I didn't even know about those Global and CTV video sites until you blogged about them a while back.
I know everyone says using proxies is fun and easy (like baking cookies with tube dough!) but I don't understand it, and I've tried to understand it, and I understand most things about the Internet. Hate proxies. Stupid Hulu.
I have Global. They shove Prison Break/24/Heroes advertisements at every fricken commerical break. I hate them.
Hey Fagstein,
I'm in the United States for holiday and Hulu is working just fine. Maybe I'm confused by the shut off from US traffic comment...
Yours,
Aubrey
No, my English just sucks. I'm sorry. I get it now. I'll enjoy the most of Hulu while I'm here. :P