Some lawyer or some manager somewhere knows why VH1 can’t be streamed outside the U.S. As my mother would say, way to win friends and influence people.

The reason the old infrastructure is dying, the reason I laugh when Doug Morris and the old farts make pronouncements, the reason legal solutions are not the answer, IS BECAUSE THE PUBLIC IS SO FAR AHEAD!

God, if this isn’t an advertisement to go indie.

You can’t buy stuff from iTunes outside your home country.

You can’t do SO much, yet in reality you can… Because you can steal/circumvent the obstructions of the clueless old men and ultimately get what you want. (See the last e-mail below.)

The Police proved it was a worldwide business almost thirty years ago. Tour everywhere, people everywhere have got money, you’ve got potential fans around the planet. Online, you’re just a click away.

It’s almost nine years after Napster and the old players STILL don’t get it.

Bob:

Read your column and tried to click through to the videos but found they’re inaccessible from Canada! What’s that about?

I guess VH1 doesn’t care since they don’t broadcast beyond US borders, so no revenue to be made, but what’s the harm in letter people outside the US see it? On the web, no less. It’s not like it’s going to be rebroadcast here (at least, I doubt it) anyway. And it’s certainly doing the bands no favors.

Oh well, off to watch it on YouTube, I guess.

Eric Wredenhagen

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Greg Van Bastelaar:

Bob,

I’m a huge PJ fan. Always have been. I enjoyed what you wrote about the band; I just wish that I could WATCH what you wrote about. The VH1 site doesn’t allow those videos to be viewed outside of the U.S.

Just another example of how some people are still fucking up the Internet…

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Steve Ostrom:

Gee thanks, the videos are only accessible from the US.
Now I gotta find a way to see them

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Thanks Bob.

"Videos accessible in the US only"….

Wim Reijnen

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Bob,
What a load of shit! VH1 doesn’t understand what the first "w" in "www" stands for. The video can only be viewed via a US connection. I’m in Canada. Talk about dropping the ball. They claim to be an international brand…yeah…

By the way, check out Paul McCartney live in Quebec City this past Sunday. Over 200,000 people. I know you have your reservations, but it was a great performance by a legend. And what a killer band he has with him. Sir Paul was there to perform for Quebec City’s 400th anniversary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XN0Ji5_HZQ

Cheers!

Patrick Turgeon

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Dan McCluskey:

Well Bob, I would watch…if only VH1 would let people outside of the U.S. watch. We’re not allowed – though we’re permitted to watch the commercials…

Dan

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So, here’s the problem in a nutshell. I read your piece on the VH1 awards, and I think that maybe I better take a listen to Pearl Jam doing The Who. After all, I have Green River, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog and I bought "Ten" the day it was released, before the hype, because I already knew what most of the band could do before Vedder arrived on the scene. So, "click" and off my browser goes to VH1 land, and…

"This video will not play outside the United States". WTF is that. When will the USA learn that WWW stands for WORLD-wide Web? I can get Euronews no worries here in Australia. BBC videos, not a problem. But the USA in its egoethnocentric way, once again, seems to think that outside the 50, and maybe 51, 52 & 53 (Puerto Rico, Canada and Mexico) simply does not exist, or merrily marches to the very off-beat of its drum. Are American tv executives worried that someone in Swaziland might see Pearl Jam playing covers? Maybe one of ‘dem terrorist homeboys will disguise himself as Stone Gossard and play Sufi meditational music in front of the USA’s embassy in Uryguay?

That cultural ethnocentricity is a lot of the root cause of the problems in the American music industry. Have you looked at the music scene in the former Warsaw pact countries or Scandinavia? It is thriving. Bands are creating new music, original music, and you know, Radiohead, despite the hype, were nowhere near the first band to give away their music and ask fans to pay what they think it is worth. I’ve been getting stuff from Sweden, Poland, Germany and Britain like that long before "In Rainbows" came out. People give their music away. They hold real jobs and treat music as a creative outlet until it can pay a decent wage. They innovate without fear. Bands like Norway’s Ulver, who make Madonna look like the pathetic pop slut she is when it comes to re-inventing themselves. From death metal to avante-garde jazz, back to techno for the mind. Look at Iceland. Population for the COUNTRY of about 300 000, and they produce Bjork, Sigur Ros, Mum, Amiina, Aparat Organ Quartet and more. Less than 1/3 the popualtion of North Dakota. How many international acts ever came out of that state?

The same "might is right", culturally superior atitude that has made the USA the nation recognised by the majority of other nations on the planet (including major powers like Germany and Sweden) as being the greatest threat to world peace and stability pervades your established music industry as they blithely tell everyone how right and great they are while the rats have already started gnawing on their bones.

Your nation needs to wake up. Your music industry needs to wake. VH1’s web programming directors need to wake up. You’re a part of the world, not vice versa.

Peter Ryan
Melbourne, Australia
It’s another country, like 220+ other nations in the world, of which the USA is but one.

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Thanks Bob – although the video links you sent through only work in the US .. I’ll find it on Youtube – never fear.

Cheers from down under, Andrew.

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Piece of shit VH1. They stream the commercial you have to sit through then tell you can’t watch the clips outside of the US.

John "Wheels" Hurlbut

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Aaron Stanton:

Videos not available outside the US….

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So I click on the link below, idle through two commercials and then get a message that the videos are only available in the US, which is no help to this Canadian.

My next step of course is to find the clips, hell maybe even the whole show on a torrent site.

This is what is wrong with the music business.

Thanks for the article regardless….

Bob K

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Alexander Mair:

FYI, the videos on VH1 are only available in the US.
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Chris Chapin:

You can only view these if you are in the us.Too bad!
Why they would restrict it is beyond me.

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Paul Flower:

I was looking forward to seeing that PJ vid. Unfortunately the VH1 website says the vids are only available to people in the states. I know it’s possibly a license issue but for streaming? How forward thinking of them. I guess I’ll be looking for it on youtube.

P.S. Found and viewed within five mins for non-us residents.

Pearl Jam- Love Reign O’er Me and The Real Me

Found and viewed within five mins for non-us residents.