The EU filed antitrust charges against all the major film studios because Europeans want to watch movies online

The European Commission is filing antitrust charges against Sky UK and pretty much all of the major US film studios for unfairly restricting content.

The studios - Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. - have agreements in place with Sky UK to stop EU consumers from viewing online and pay-TV content available in the UK.

The commission thinks those contracts breach competition rules.

Margrethe Vestager, the competition commissioner, said "European consumers want to watch the pay-TV channels of their choice regardless of where they live or travel in the EU. Our investigation shows that they cannot do this today."

The commission sent a statement of objections to the companies, which they can reply to before the regulator makes a final decision.

The investigation started in 2014, and there are no hard deadlines in these cases, so it could be a while yet before TV addicts notice any changes.