From Gamerscore Blog;
Some Xbox LIVE members may experience some changes when downloading Marketplace content, as we strengthen the territory controls on the service with the Spring Update coming next week.
As you may have noticed over the past few months, Xbox LIVE Marketplace has seen tremendous growth with tons of additional gaming and entertainment content, as well as a number of new partners. We are committed to providing great content to all of our users, however not all content is available for use in all countries. For example, as indicated in our Terms of Use, the movies and TV shows available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace are currently available only for use in the United States.
Some of our contracts and agreements with content partners, particularly in the area of entertainment, restrict in which countries we may make certain content available. There are a number of reasons for these restrictions, including legal rights and regulations. In addition, various countries such as Germany have regulations when it comes to what content is acceptable for distribution to their residents. As a digital distributor of content, we are responsible and accountable to comply with those government regulations and the licensing agreements we have with our partners. As a general policy we try to get global rights to content, but in some cases, it's not possible because of legal restrictions. In other instances, we have to get legal rights on a country-by-country basis, which unfortunately results with us having content on the service that has to be filtered based on geographical location.
The first time I read this, I don't pay the attention needed because I live in Puerto Rico (territory of the US), place where every tv channel, movies are the same we have here, with the same release date. Today when I try to download the HD trailer of The Matrix and some other clips from the movie in the marketplace, in preparation for the release of The Ultimate Matrix Collection in HD DVD, I receive an error message because of my location. So I start looking for changes in the Xbox Live policy in my reader and found this post from Gamerscore Blog.
I understand everything about the legal issue, but that stay true when someone from Europe or Asia create an US account to get the content of other region. but what really happen to those in Puerto Rico like me, our account are from the US, as indicated in the Terms of Use, the movies and TV shows available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace are currently available only for use in the United States, Puerto Rico is part of the United State. Everything we have here came from the US, all the movie theater practically receive the same release date, all the DVD's, HD DVD , BLUE RAY, games from all the systems receive the same launch date of US here in Puerto Rico. Another thing is, where is my Xbox Customer Service? what is the number I have to call if I have any problem? 1-800-4MY-XBOX right, this is the one in the US, that was the number of the customer service I call in January, 2007 when my Xbox 360 fail, and was repaired for free, including the shipment for a system purchased in Puerto Rico the launch day (November 22, 2005).
In April 29, 2007 I buy the Xbox 360 Elite because of the HDMI and most importantly the bigger hard drive, something I always have full with the 20g hard drive. What I going to do with this bigger hard drive of the Elite.
