Hulu Blocks VPN Users

New submitter electronic convict writes: "Hulu, apparently worried that too many non-U.S. residents are using cheap VPN services to watch its U.S. programming, has started blocking IP address ranges belonging to known VPN services. Hulu didn't announce the ban, but users of the affected VPNs are getting this message: 'Based on your IP-address, we noticed that you are trying to access Hulu through an anonymous proxy tool. Hulu is not currently available outside the U.S. If you're in the U.S. you'll need to disable your anonymizer to access videos on Hulu.' Hulu may make Hollywood happy by temporarily locking out foreign users — at least until they find new VPN providers. But in so doing it's now forcing its U.S. customers to sacrifice their privacy and even to risk insecure connections. Hulu hasn't even implemented SSL on its site."

Comments

Re:Not their fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think I was quite that idealistic back in the day, but I've gotten more cynical over time, yeah.

Resource inequality is a bad thing, but I have a hard time getting mad about entertainment luxury inequality. (Some things, like textbooks, are pretty inexcusable--but we have Wikipedia, and I grew up back in the day where encyclopedias were ungodly expensive, so I'm in a good mood about that at least.) But there's certainly good things that have come from pursuit of money. Oh yeah, great evils too, but also plenty of good.

Example. Modern blockbuster movies with stupidly large budgets. Directors do that because they think they'll get their investment back and then some. Sure they enjoy the act of creating an impressive creative work (well, some movies are), but movies that cost hundreds of millions of dollars need more inspiration than just "I like making movies". Sure lots of them suck...but you know what, I think I'm glad that they spent all that cash on the Avengers movies. They are turning out really good, in my opinion at least. I don't think they would be so good on a Creative Commons budget.

Anyway...Funding those movies. They make some of that back in theaters, but there's a VERY long, fat tail on that income--and that income is kept large by some of the stupid restrictions they have. Like, while it's in the theaters you can't get it at home; for X weeks out of it goes out of theaters, you can buy it but not rent it; then you can rent it but not televise it. It's a careful curve to maximize money.

Region control is part of the same scheme, and it's not always to customers' detriment. If you can't afford to see a movie in theater for $20, maybe you can afford to buy it for $15. If you can't afford that, maybe you can rent it for $5. But if you could rent it right away, you might not see it in the theater at all. Similarly: Americans are rich enough to buy a movie for $15. In eastern Europe, where money is more scarce, the industry might sell it for $5 instead. If the price was the same everywhere, then either eastern Europe gets shafted, or they make less money in the USA, and like it or not, that money does let them make better media. Region control is super important to let them charge different amounts in different regions, and *if done correctly* the consumer in secondary markets is better off.

Of course, in practice, companies are dumb about actually using region control, and they put off actually selling things to secondary market for months or years (sorry Australia) or they don't ever export them at all. But just because the technology is not optimally used, does not mean it is bad! Much like theoretical capitalism, or theoretical communism, a theoretical region control really does give optimal prices to every user, where they can pay a fair price for their location, and everyone wins. It's not free, but see above...if it was free we wouldn't get modern special effects.

Look, modern DRM is universally badly implemented, but it's getting better, and in a truly perfect world it isn't hostile to the consumer. In the little picture, yeah, it's bad for you personally, but in the big picture it enables some sweeping market reforms that are pretty cool for people that otherwise couldn't afford stuff. It's hard to see from the consumer level, but if you look into the market forces at work...well, they don't actually suck. Anyway, just because we're not at a perfectly customer-unhostile implementation yet doesn't mean we should scrap the technology altogether; Rome wasn't built in a day and getting this stuff right (on the technical side and the social side) are both hard as hell. Current stuff hurts the consumer, most obvious solutions tend to hurt the media cartels, but I think someday there will be implementations that don't hurt customers or publishers. I'm okay with paying for my media--and someday, I hope that imperfect implementations won't keep me from actually using it.

In any case...I think I'm going to go watch Netflix now, and r

Re:Not their fault

[PRMan]

One time, my company asked me to write a spam engine. Seven of us developers go together and threatened to quit. And we would have.

They also tried to get me to write gambling software for an offshore casino. I refused that as well. I told my boss not to take the contract. They got investigated by the FBI shortly thereafter.