In one embodiment, a method defines a plurality of geographic primitives. A geographic primitive is defined by one or more location identifiers. A plurality of distribution areas are generated where a distribution area is defined by one or more of the geographic primitives. The method assigns one of the distribution areas to each of a plurality of pieces of media content. Then, the method stores the assigned one of the plurality of distribution areas for each of the plurality of pieces of media content in a database. One or more of the plurality of pieces of media content are published with the assigned one of the distribution areas. The assigned one of the distribution areas is usable to determine which media content in the one or more of the plurality of pieces of media content is available to users.