There seems to be a practice, mostly by US entertainment companies, to block non-US IP addresses from accessing their websites.
Could someone please explain to me the rationale behind this?
The rest of the world eats up our entertainment like hotcakes.
Blocking them is just asinine.
It’s not quite as reprehensible as US companies helping China censor the internet from their own people.
maybe it has something to do with pirating?
I don’t think so. You can’t actually download shows from the sites.
It’s sort of like how they region encode DVDs, but showtime.com and all those guys just show teasers, why not hype up the international audience as well as the domestic?