NBC won’t let me watch the Olympic trials

You can’t watch! Go away!This afternoon I got very excited to find out that NBC was going to be doing a full coverage webcast of the US Olympic Marathon Trials tomorrow morning. I have already scheduled to get up at 5:30 so I can watch the start. I went to the website to make sure that everything was ready to go. Though there is no current coverage, the site seemed to work just fine at the time.

That was this afternoon. Now, as I get ready to go to bed, I wanted to give everything one more check. When I went to the page from which the video will be streaming, I am met with a message that says:

Content Not Available:
Geo-blocked. This event is only available to viewers within the U.S. … If you are outside of the United States you are not allowed to view this content.

If you would like to view the marathon online from a location outside the United States, please go to wcsn.com

[Emphasis mine]

I am “not allowed to view this content”? Why does your location matter? This is the Internet for crying out loud! Are we limited by imaginary borders?

Their alternate website is only showing the NYC Marathon on Sunday. According to their event schedule they will not have Trials coverage.

I happen to know a way around this. It only takes a couple of minutes to set up going through a proxy server in the US. That will hide the fact that I am outside of US borders.

Putting aside that it is totally idiotic to not allow people outside of the US to view the content, this is another example of where trying to stop people from doing what they want only hurts less knowledgeable people. There is nothing stopping me from using a proxy server. There is nothing illegal about using a proxy server. There is no logical reason they should be keeping me from watching this event. Therefore I am going to thwart their stupid scheme to keep me from seeing my country’s top marathoners compete tomorrow. But what about all the other people out there who don’t have the knowledge to do this? They just get to brood at NBC and have to accept that the network is keeping them from content they want.

If they don’t want people to see their coverage, then they should not be in charge of filming the event. This is where big media has an agenda and has no real interest in the viewers. I know I am not the only person outside the US who wants to see this. My suspicion is that the advertisers were not willing to pay the dollar amount that NBC wanted to show it to a world wide audience. They are more concerned about milking the dollar than giving us content.

Arghh!

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