Six major Hollywood studios and British pay-television service Sky TV have run afoul of European regulators, who accuse the companies of illegally blocking access to U.S. movies, TV shows and other content for most consumers outside the U.K. and Ireland.
What happened?
The European Commission on Thursday filed an official "statement of objections" against Sky UK and the major U.S. film studios: Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros.
The studios face potentially big fines for allegedly entering into improper licensing agreements with Sky UK that prohibit viewers outside Britain and Ireland from accessing its programming via satellite or the Internet.