[Tutor] Python on TV

[Steven D'Aprano]

Luke Paireepinart wrote:
> I don't see how a content provider preventing you from accessing content internationally that they probably don't have international distribution rights to as censorship. It's not like your ISP is blocking your access.

There is nothing about censorship that means it can only be performed by 
government. Your parents probably censored what you saw and read when 
you were a child. Fox News censors; private companies and entities of 
all sizes and forms censor, with varying degrees of success and 
different motives.

As Bill Cole once said:

"Here in the US, we are so schizoid and deeply opposed to government
censorship that we insist on having unaccountable private parties
to do it instead."

Not all censorship is bad, nor is it always from a desire to hide 
information or keep people ignorant. Often it is from a desire to make 
money by restricting information. Sometimes the entity doing the 
censorship doesn't gain from it at all, but does so on behalf of another 
party. Sometimes the party doing the censorship doesn't even realise 
that they are censoring, because they themselves are equally victims of 
censorship. It's all still censorship.

As for international distribution rights, that concept no longer makes 
sense in the 21st century. It's well past time that they have their 
business models catch up to reality.



-- 
Steven