This video is not playable in your country.
Feb 21

This video is not playable in your country.

Night Explosion: I tried to watch a video to Google Video. It seemed harmless enough:

This is a weapons cache found in Iraq, we detonated it with a few satchels of C4.

But I was greeted with:

This video is not playable in your country.

Huh. Why? Via Andre Torrez.

by Deane   February 21, 2006 7:47 AM   |
  tags: 
Google Video

Comments

by Yaron,   February 21, 2006 9:29 AM  

Because the person who placed the movie there decided not to allow it. It's one of the features of Google Video.

I'm not sure whether they had a good reason, didn't have any reason, of it was intentional in order to try and start a discussion on why Google blocks movies about Iraqi weapon caches or some such.

Works fine from outside the US, and I can assure you that this particular movie isn't impressive. Can't see much of anything. So no big loss...

by jonathan peterson,   February 21, 2006 10:52 AM  

Agreed, I assume the "not playable in your country" is the result of the posting user's tagging. Though it could be a video that has been licensed differently in the US or even a video that has been taken down in response to a copyright owner's complains.

An article about google's takedowns - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2360351.stm

and google's official policy - http://www.google.com/video_dmca.html

It would be wise of Google to put in some kind of "why is this blocked" link so make clear what the actual reason may be.

If you really want to see the videos, they are here: http://www.screenhead.com/funny/pants-on-fire/google-doing-evil-155658.php along with instructions for how to get to google video that is blocked. http://www.tian.cc/2006/02/google-censors-videos.html

by Ruben's usability,   February 21, 2006 10:32 PM  

I have found this often, also on commercials and other seemingly harmless video's. Trying the exact same URL in a different browser somehow often resolved the issue.

An example was the GM commercials on the superbowl that I could'nt view in my country (.nl) when watching all the superbowl's in a streak, but pasting the url in IE made me watch it fine...

by Peter Shen,   February 22, 2006 5:13 AM  

Yes, when I uploaded my elevator video there was an option to restrict viewing for particular regions. Most video uploaders probably won't restrict viewing of their videos, but I think Google probably thought the access control was a useful option. Another educated guess is that this design is related to keyword blocking measures they had to add to the Google Search in China, where the Internet traffic basically goes through a "government firewall," censoring certain content.

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