Some YouTube Videos May Not Be Available in Your Country
No, this is not about Internet censorship in countries like China or Pakistan where ISPs frequently block access to sites like YouTube following Government orders.
You could be staying in a country like US, UK or India but may not be able to watch every video on YouTube - that’s because the content owners have allowed access to that video only from certain countries or geographic regions.
If your computer’s IP address falls outside that geographic region, YouTube will display an error saying “This video is not available in your country” - this message has nothing to do with censorship, it’s the owner of the video clip who could be limiting access.
YouTube Filters in Action
For instance, this video clip (Armor For Sleep - Hold The Door), uploaded to YouTube by Warner Brothers, is probably not available outside US. Similarly, this BBC clip (Stop Calling it a Honeymoon) on YouTube can only be watched from UK.
BBC has mentioned the reason behind region filtering on their official BBC Channel - “Because of the way that the BBC is funded in the UK through the licence fee, we cannot make videos available outside of the UK”.
How to bypass YouTube Region Filtering ?
Luckily, it is very easy to bypass these country-specific restrictions on YouTube. Type the YouTube video URL inside Google Translate and hit enter (Also see: Google Proxy Server).
Read some more ways to access blocked websites.
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I tried to watch BBC show in America. I tried Google Translate and Babel Translate, it gives me the following error:
We’re sorry…
… but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.
We’ll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.
If you’re continually receiving this error, you may be able to resolve the problem by deleting your Google cookie and revisiting Google. For browser-specific instructions, please consult your browser’s online support center.
If your entire network is affected, more information is available in the Google Web Search Help Center.
We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we’ll see you again on Google.
I guess we can still watch such videos by converting them.. convertube.com will allow to convert youtube video in other formats.
Didn’t knew Youtube is offering this feature to its members . Thanks for the bypass trick :D
Interesting Amit..Recently China lifted ban from You Tube..Now You Tube itself using filters
This must be Warner Brother Records fighting piracy and terrorism!
What really pisses me off, is the fact that the video that made me aware of this, was on the front page. If they have defy logic and restrict MUSIC VIDEOS to certain regions, they could at least NOT advertise those videos outside the regions they can actually be viewed in…
“Because of the way that the BBC is funded in the UK through the licence fee, we cannot make videos available outside of the UK”
- Oh, they simply cannot? How about you make those videos available… for free? Like… everything else on YouTube? Huh? BBC?
Are they saying that it actually costs them MONEY to get viewed by IP’s outside of the UK? If not, what exactly were they trying to say behind that legaleese…?
A way to get around this is to replace the “watch?v=” part of a url to just “/v/”.
It should look like this : http://youtube.com/v/TCP38r6Iw
try torproject.org, its about online anonymity but im still trying it out. If it works for anyone let me know
Despite your saying: IT *IS* CENSORSHIP!
This is a load of crap - really! If a company is offering and licencing its product in America, it does not lose by allowing for instance people in India to view it. It’s just commercial greed and stupidy - they only want to offer the music video in places where there is a chance people will buy the album. The whole point in youtube is because it is relatively low-quality, it cannot substitute the “real thing”, but gives people the freedom to view, create or share any and all video/music content. And I think it’s not forbidden to stick adverts on youtube video’s is it? (Such as a “sponsored by” slogan).. Any serious surfer who wants to get around such youtube crap can use a proxy..
I suppose one has to understand why youtube offers such a ‘feature’. They’ve got all sorts of “copyright owners” breathing down their backs and don’t want to be viewed negativelly in the media and political circles. They don’t want to be dropped in the same bag as P2P networks and bittorent. I mean I think youtube is a trans-global cultural phenomenon..(just as the internet is) and if the politicians and LABELS and show-biz people understood this they might reduce the censorship.
— It’s not piracy - the C: should be free for all!