With online video taking the Internet to new levels in entertainment pleasure there is a massive grey area that seems to be swamping not only those who live outside of the United States, but those living in there who want access to our shows. This grey area is International Restriction.

International Restriction is a cancer, not only for the Internet but for many software and hardware products in the market today. For example, the iPhone was released in the United Kingdom months after America got its first taste of it, and thanks to the easy access to American media we now have the general public had heard enough about it to realise that the hype just wasn’t worth it. Even in the world we live in today it exists on websites. Online communities such as Newsvine show little to no attention to International users, with such simple things as the Champions League final, one of the most important sporting events in the entire world apparenting being played in America. This complete disregard for users doesn’t just bother those outside of America, as the fantastic BBC iPlayer allegedly no longer works for those in America. This problem is widespread, with websites like South Park Studios, Adult Swim and even YouTube showing no love to those across the pond.

Considering that websites like MySpace and Facebook can easily allow for media to be viewed by anyone across the world within seconds, along with BitTorrent being able to transfer huge files to anyone would the world just as fast, why do we have to wait for hardware, software or any other kind of media? Those that produce popular shows like Lost and Heroes already know the perils of International users downloading episodes before they come out in America, with their cries to stop and their attempts to limit it to a few days after only condensing the time users will download it to ensure that an International news website doesn’t leak any details.

Designers and Developer all over the world are crying out for Accessibility and Usability to be prime factors when creating a website or any other kind of application when we can’t even provide a simple 25 minute video to countries around the world. One of the main reasons for this is laws on who gets to play it and when, but even though I know very little about law (not suprising as I’m not a lawyer) it’s still an excuse with no real backing. Apple have already shot themselves in the foot with their tepid iPlayer launch in the UK and I’d be very surprised if this ordeal were to stop now.

All I can say on the matter is that Internationalisation is a part of Accessibility too, and if you’re discriminating users because of where they’re from you’re not much better than those who refuse to design to web standards. If you want to show a video then you should make sure that everyone can view it, whether they’re from Spain, Portugal, Kenya, England, America or Mars.