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There happens a time when popular TV shows, apps and lots of stuff online don’t see the light of the day to many audiences owing to regional restrictions and the legal hullabaloo that goes with it. Like entrepreneurship would suggest; it’s best suited to come up with alternatives that check real life or world problems and so piracy comes in handy, as the one solution to have access to the aforementioned services.

So opting for Illegal downloads comes as no surprise!

Therefore, there is no prodigy finding someone watching a US produced show well knowing it’s not available in that country for viewing. But, there he is watching them anyway glued to his TV enjoying House of Cards, Game of Thrones and lots of hit shows around the world, even a weeks long box office hit. In fact many like him watch them even before the rest of the world does since they’re enslaved to geographical restrictions. It doesn’t only stop at movies, it cuts across apps, books, essential services and a lot more. Just the other day– and others before it, I tried accessing Spotify from the app store and I was met with “Service not available in your country”, and it was made more clearer when I headed over to their Web version where I was greeted by the message in the image above. Same old words/sentence crucifying me for being a good netizen.

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But as a geek, they’re a lot of measures to go around this especially for Android folks, forgive me if I further that story to a later date. So instead of genuinely accessing or paying for the said service, the other way round takes its toll. Reason? Geographical restrictions.

Popcorn Time is the unrestricted Netflix

Owing to such reason(s), torrent sites and apps are some of the most visited/used in different geographical enclaves across the globe. They’re more prevalent than native websites at some offerings. One such service is Popcorn Time (see its User Interface in image below), an illegal Netflix of sorts with an easy to go around interface for pirated TV content. The former doesn’t have anything like geographical restrictions, or in house legal mambo Jambo associated with it.

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Popcorn Time allows for streaming as well as downloads, the latter a much needed feature especially this side of the world. (As a point of clarification, this is no lecture for how to go around the system and so legal implications are not as a result of the author)

Many wouldn’t dare miss out on the myriad of educational content, research notes, tutorials, entertainment content and a mammoth of other content out there because of geographical restrictions and so the unprecedented piracy rates.

“It’s either that content players have failed to innovate enough to adapt to the free world”

Players will argue that monetization issues, available infrastructure come first on their list while choosing a host country but a more larger number argues differently. I have come across a bunch of peers and more like them willing to drop any dollar or cent to have access to such paid for content but they’re struck with such geographical restrictions!

It’s either that content players have failed to innovate enough to adapt to the free world, and offer us home tailored payment solutions alas the credit card nightmare. Market demands dictate the free world and so players should follow suit. So let them utilize direct carrier billing or make good use of mobile money since it comes down to economics at the end of the day.

Else, offer content freely alongside the irritating ads. Many would endure that and these can as well prompt folks to go an extra mile and pay to ditch the said Ads. YouTube is doing fine here with a free model! As long as the geographical walls stay up, piracy will continue to ride alongside. Players take note.