That was really annoying to me even as an American as well (though I currently live in Denmark). When I embed Youtube videos in things like blog posts, I want to know that all my readers can view them, not just me, but Youtube won't tell me which videos are region-restricted. I ended up having to use a proxy in another country to test for myself, so I could avoid unknowingly embedding US-only videos.
And even if the content is available today, that does not mean it will be available tomorrow.
Recently I found a new music video posted in the official channel of a record distribution company (nuclearblast), which a couple of days later was blocked because one of the big music labels intervened. By now, they seem to have resolved their differences and the video is available again here - but for how long?
International copyright laws are a bit of a mess.Also, in lots of countries you have to pay a fee if you're "performing" publicly. And according to some agencies, Youtube videos do count as such. If I remember correctly, one such agency, the German GEMA wanted to collect 12 Euro cents each time a major label video was watched on youtube.
True, but I think he was asking why the meta-information isn't provided, where you'd be able to click on something next to a video and get information about which regions it's available in.
Even if I only have an internet access at my home, no TV and no radio, I still have to pay a quarterly "licence fee" (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/licencefee/) because certain public stations have a website and could offer certain TV or radio programs on their website.
Sorry, this was mis-leading... I was actually talking about the German GEMA rules and only used the BBC website as an example for "license fee" since I am not sure this is the correct translation for what the German GEMA and that "tax on radio and tv" is all about and I doubt anything like that exists in the USA.
Erm, I think you're confusing the GEMA with the GEZ, which would be the equivalent of the British TV licenses, i.e. your fee for state-run broadcasts. Not aware of any equivalents in the US, things like C-Span, PBS and NPR are more independent if I'm not mistaken.
The GEMA is something entirely different, about as capitalistic as you can get get. And so to no surprise there are equivalents in the US, e.g. BMI and the Harry Fox Agency.
