This chapter introduces the major methods and arguments of the book. In doing so, it emphasizes that regional lockout is at once a system of technological regulation, media distribution, and geocultural discrimination. Situating regional lockout within the history of scholarly analysis of these areas, the introduction illustrates how distribution practices, digital regulation systems, and geocultural difference and inequality all influence one another. In doing so, the introduction also develops a theory of geocultural capital, which refers to a kind of broadly scaled cultural capital applied to places rather than people—that is, a hierarchical perception of a nation or region’s value based on its access to cultural resources like media.