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

Privacy is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare you try to bypass our arbitrary and senseless restrictions, and how dare you try to obtain a bit of privacy!

Re: Privacy is bad

[geekbastard]

Umm... I am a Hulu plus subscriber and find the advertising to be of very little annoyance with the biggest issue being the repetition of ads, at least change it up a little. There are far less advertisements than if I were to watch it live or on my dvr. I don't have the issues of it hanging on advertisements but I mostly watch on my Roku and it sounds like you are watching in your browser. I did have that issue on occasion back when it first came to PS3 but that was years ago and hasn't been an issue for done time now. I don't know maybe I'm in the minority but I find the service to be pretty great.

Re:Privacy is bad

[Opportunist]

Because you need my money to exist. I don't need your product to exist.

Guess who needs who.

Re:Privacy is bad

[thegarbz]

I don't need your product to exist.

hahahaha oh you silly consumer thinking you have free will in the matter.

The problem is that most of the world works around psychology of consumerism. Only the strongest of mind are able to exert the kind of free will that says "I don't need your product." Many think they can, but suddenly they NEED that product when the word "Sale" is written next to it, or when they see it on the back of the bus, or when their favourite celebrity endorses it.

They don't need your money to exist. If anything companies can come and take a shit on the front lawn of most consumers and they will happily clean it up, say thank you, and keep on consuming.

Re:Privacy is bad

[gonnagetya]

I was about to make a more civil post in reply but honestly, yours makes it for me in a similar fashion.

Although the phrase "you need my money to exist, I don't need your product to exist" sounds insightful and powerful, it's ultimately worthless because as you say, ignorant or week-minded/willed consumers will ensure that companies continue to act like dicks because there isn't enough motivation for them not to do so.

The idea that companies will get punished for being assholes has been shown time and time again to be completely bullshit because of the power of being huge and controlling the system. You can of course elect not to contribute to the system by not spending money on said assholes if you can, but they won't notice unless a significant number of people make the same decision (and publicly). And of course, this only works for luxury items that you can do without...

Re:Privacy is bad

[amiga3D]

Hey, Hulu's loss is thepiratebay's gain. It's fun to watch people slit their own throats.

I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[mi]

If you're in the U.S. you'll need to disable your anonymizer to access videos on Hulu.

I suspect, it is the anonymity, that they wish to defeat — to be able to track users and sell the information.

Hulu may make Hollywood happy by temporarily locking out foreign users

That may be only a secondary concern.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you have to be logged in to view videos? If so then they already have information to track and sell.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[tepples]

Why, when Hulu detects a visitor arriving from a country other than the United States, does it not refer the user to the licensee doing business in that particular country?

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[pushing-robot]

Also, Hulu is ad-supported. If I was one of their 'sponsors', I might be a bit annoyed that Hulu was billing me for ads delivered to countries where I don't even do business.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[nospam007]

"Also, Hulu is ad-supported. If I was one of their 'sponsors', I might be a bit annoyed that Hulu was billing me for ads delivered to countries where I don't even do business."

People who use VPNs usually also use adblockers, they are the same crowd.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[Charliemopps]

If you're in the U.S. you'll need to disable your anonymizer to access videos on Hulu.

I suspect, it is the anonymity, that they wish to defeat — to be able to track users and sell the information.

Hulu may make Hollywood happy by temporarily locking out foreign users

That may be only a secondary concern.

No. Hulu is owned by Hollywood. This is entirely about them controlling content. Hulus biggest problem from the start has been all the disparate interests of all the media companies involved in its ownership and operation. It benefits from sweet deals with those companies, but suffers from their idiotically uncreative ideas about how video on the Internet should work.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[vux984]

Also, Hulu is ad-supported. If I was one of their 'sponsors', I might be a bit annoyed that Hulu was billing me for ads delivered to countries where I don't even do business.

You should factor that into your advertising budget.

Some percentage of people your ads get shown to aren't interested in your product and never will be, that some percentage don't have enough money to buy it, that some percentage are foreign tourists staying at a friends house who don't speak English and can't even under stand your ad, that some percentage looked away and muted the volume when your ad came on, some percentage ...

really if the idea that some fraction are foreigners jumping through hoops to watch your ads offends you I don't know how you cope.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[Anonymous Coward]

If they want to watch my ads for free that fine. However, I don't want to *pay* to have them watch my ads. You are correct that these things are factored into an advertising budget. However if we can figure out how to make the advertising budget 5% more efficient of course we would do that. One of the big selling points of the internet of traditional advertising is the ability to more accurately target people who are interested in your product.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[Mashiki]

Why, when Hulu detects a visitor arriving from a country other than the United States, does it not refer the user to the licensee doing business in that particular country?

Because in most cases, there is no licensee doing business in that particular country. Sure here in Canada we have Netflix, but there sure isn't anything close to Hulu. Same hold true in many other countries, but really since I didn't use it I don't care too much, but I'm sure this is going to tick quite a few people off. It's quite similar as to the whole bit with HBO and Game of Thrones, and their other TV series. They *could* be making money hand over fist by selling it people online, but they don't. Instead it has to go through cable companies, which require you to buy into HBO via a part of a package which may cost you upwards of $100-200/mo on top of your normal cable bill.

And they wonder why piracy is running wild for that show. Derp.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[LurkerXXX]

When someone is coming in through a VPN, you have no idea what their country of origin is, so how can you tell what license to show them?

You can't.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[tlambert]

"Also, Hulu is ad-supported. If I was one of their 'sponsors', I might be a bit annoyed that Hulu was billing me for ads delivered to countries where I don't even do business."

People who use VPNs usually also use adblockers, they are the same crowd.

Ad blockers are pretty poor at doing their named job when the next 1800 frames inserted into the video stream are going to be 60 seconds worth of commercials, and you can go pee or not go pee, talk to your family, or whatever, but those are the 1800 frames @ 30FPS you are going to be getting over the next 60 seconds. Hulu has a fairly captive audience, due to their implementation of streaming.

The big argument with Aereo streaming content legally received on antennas within a given region where the information is broadcast is that the Aereo subscribers are unlikely to be customers of the local ads which paid (in theory) for the broadcast service to those devices. In other words, it's about regionality for the ads for ad-sponsorred content.

In practice, it's no different than taking your DVR with you on vacation, and using DVR time shifting, but the ad conversion rate is closer to 0 than if the ads were being viewed by someone local, instead of someone on vacation in a hotel room in Rome. Advertisers care about conversion rate, so media providers also care about conversion rate, and anything that lowers their conversion rate lowers the advertising rate they are able to charge.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[Kalriath]

Because outside the US, there is no licensee doing business. Every time I see someone from the US bitching about how awful Netflix and Hulu are, I want to tear my hair out because we (and most of the rest of the world) have nothing even remotely as good.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[Kalriath]

Hulu's ads are delivered as part of the video stream.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[tepples]

Then block VPNs and refer non-VPN foreign users to the appropriate service.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[Immerman]

In fairness the US is less than 1/23 of the world's population, even assuming only Europeans, Canadians, and Australians are also interested in Hulu that's three foreigners for every American. I would probably be upset at paying for ad views when 3/4 of them are potentially wasted on non-Americans. Granted for a time VPN was probably a good enough filter that only a tiny minority of views were from foreigners, but at this point I imagine most everyone interested has had a tech-savy friend hook them up.

It would be interesting to see the actual numbers though - Hulu should be able to tell us what percentage of users employ common VPNs, if it's something in the 1-5% range then you are absolutely right, it's probably a non-issue unless the NSA is demanding comprehensive records for some reason. On the other hand if it's in the 30-70% range then I'd say they're absolutely justified in cracking down on it.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[Opportunist]

I'm fairly sure if such a service was offered in their country, people would not resort to VPN hoops to jump through.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[vux984]

If 3 out 4 Hulu subscribers were foreign, you'd think Hulu would have opened up in foreign markets by now. :)

On the other hand if it's in the 30-70% range then I'd say they're absolutely justified in cracking down on it.

I'd be VERY surprised if its much more than the 0.3% to 0.7% range.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[Your.Master]

Aside from that, I don't think there's any evidence at all that people who use VPNs are more likely to use ad-blockers. I can only assume this is because you figure it requires technical knowledge to set up a VPN.

I think some people might not realize just how streamlined and easy some common VPN-services have become outside the US, because of just how bad video streaming services are outside the US. The same sort of people who have trouble finding the "Any Key" set these up by themselves. I know a person who to this day calls computers "Windows Sessions" because in Windows 3.1 when you shut down your computer You'd go File->Exit Windows, and it popped up "Are you sure you want to end your Windows session?". She set it up on her own. She's not using an adblocker.

(Also doesn't need one with Netflix).

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[tepples]

My hypothesis was that if Hulu wants to stick to the U.S. market, it could do a better job of doing two things when refusing service to foreign users. If it points out other lawful outlets for its licensors' works, there's slightly less of a chance that the users that Hulu turns away will turn to copyright infringement as a last resort, which benefits Hulu's licensors. Or if none exist, passive-aggressively shaming its licensors into serving other markets might help decrease the long-run tendency toward copyright infringement as a last resort, which also benefits Hulu's licensors in the long run.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[grcumb]

Why, when Hulu detects a visitor arriving from a country other than the United States, does it not refer the user to the licensee doing business in that particular country?

Because for the majority of the world's population, there simply is no legal way to obtain this stuff. I live in a country where the majority of the population cannot get a credit card, and for whom internet is a luxury beyond the means of most. But even for people like me who have full-time access, the prospect of actually paying for things is a daunting one. Many companies simply won't accept my credit card; virtually none of them ship to my country, and a number of software makers (I'm looking at you, Apple & Adobe) don't even admit that my country exists.

Someone who goes to the lengths required to maintain a VPN presence and a subscription should be welcomed by the industry, not cast out. But instead they drive us back to our shonky screeners purchased for a buck at the local Chinese store.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[tlambert]

If 3 out 4 Hulu subscribers were foreign, you'd think Hulu would have opened up in foreign markets by now. :)

On the other hand if it's in the 30-70% range then I'd say they're absolutely justified in cracking down on it.

I'd be VERY surprised if its much more than the 0.3% to 0.7% range.

Your statement assumes that there's no value to the content producer or the advertiser to market segmentation, which is blatantly false. It also assumes that non-U.S. viewers would be interested enough in U.S. content that the international licensing and the infrastructure for international hosting, as well as fighting with the music and motion picture groups in other locations (Germany is a particularly asshattish place to try to offer streaming services - note the GEMA shutdown of GrooveShark and YouTube for not paying duplicate license fees to those already paid to the content creators).

So yeah, there are countries where the users are opposed to their government and industry driven restrictions on their ability to access content, but who are not willing to fight those governmental and industry bodies for the right to access the content, when it's pretty easy to just route around the damage. Routing around the damage is, in fact, a *lot* easier than making the laws and industry groups more sanely based in economic reality.

Hopefully this shutdown will spread to other services, and the people being denied content will beat up the people who are *in the way* of Hulu opening a Hulu.de, and similar streaming companies opening corresponding sites.

Until then, get a VPN from a company that's willing to burn a large IP address space and move around a lot to try and make the restrictions ineffective. Or, you know, lobby the industry organizations to change their policies (good luck with that!), and then get your government involved.

Or go outside and play frisbee, instead of watching Honey Boo Boo.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[Opportunist]

Logic? Really? How long have you been on this planet that you try to argue with logic when it comes to copyright matters?

Content distribution is heavily territory protected. When I have the "right" to distribute in this part of the world, nothing, but NOTHING, you do to distribute here is acceptable. No, not even when I don't provide this service. Or when you try to pay me. Allowing you to do something in my territory might create a dangerous precedent. Because sooner or later you might take over my territory, slice by slice.

Why the content owners and studios don't simply do away with the local distributors? Because they learned their lesson from what happened with Apple. Divide and conquer is far more profitable to them. It is easier to press a local distributor into a contract, one of the many out there who you could easily replace, if you're one of the big 5 studios, rather than if you're one of the 5 studios and there's only one global distributor you can talk to who can easily simply dump you in favor of the other 4 if you don't want to play by his rules. It's not that much different in video content.

You see, studios have no interest AT ALL in large "partners". Mostly 'cause they don't treat their partners as such.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[TubeSteak]

Ad blockers are pretty poor at doing their named job when the next 1800 frames inserted into the video stream are going to be 60 seconds worth of commercials, and you can go pee or not go pee, talk to your family, or whatever, but those are the 1800 frames @ 30FPS you are going to be getting over the next 60 seconds. Hulu has a fairly captive audience, due to their implementation of streaming.

The adverts are fetched from elsewhere, during set points during a stream.
Ad-Blockers can and do intercept Hulu adverts.

This works because Hulu, like some other online streaming providers, breaks their stream up into segments.
This makes ripping a stream harder, since you have to mux together multiple segments, but it also makes blocking ads fairly simple.

IIRC, Hulu does have some ad-blocking-detection in place and can stop the stream once you hit the first checkpoint (so to speak).

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[GameboyRMH]

No, anonymity is a secondary concern. Their problem is that they consider non-US users to be commercially worthless, so streaming free video to them is considered a total loss. The logic is that you're (1) not in the target demographic, (2) not even in the target market and (3) statistically unlikely to wield any meaningful spending power anyway. For every French guy getting ads for Dodge trucks about 10 poor 3rd-worlders are also seeing that ad.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[complete loony]

This season in AU, the price is lower that last year. I don't think you need the HBO channel itself, they're carrying the show on one of the basic Foxtel channels. But there's still no way I'm signing up to cable for one show.

Re:I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[tepples]

When I have the "right" to distribute in this part of the world

Then Hulu should inform the visitors it is turning away that you do in fact own the applicable exclusive license to a particular work in that territory.

Re: I don't think, they worry about non-US users

[tepples]

You could always make your own movies instead and compete with Hulu and its licensors on that front.

The Internet Has No Oceans

[Anonymous Coward]

Arbitrary license restrictions sure are great.

There is no conspiracy.

[um... Lucas]

Regardless of the users IP, Hulu can track those users and sell their information, VPN or not. They've got those subscribers billing credentials, after all. A VPN is useful if you don't want someone else looking into your connection, but for the site you're visiting, especially one that needs your credit card, a VPN isn't meant to be a protection from them getting your info. Your ISP won't (or at least shouldn't) have a clue that you're visiting Hulu, should you be using a VPN, though.

So no, there is no attack on anonymity here.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

If they already have all that information, then why do they need to block VPNs? It seems like they could figure it out another way.

But is this just about the paid service?

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[asmkm22]

I'm pretty sure the people they are blocking aren't actually subscribers...

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[orasio]

Regardless of the users IP, Hulu can track those users and sell their information, VPN or not. They've got those subscribers billing credentials, after all. A VPN is useful if you don't want someone else looking into your connection, but for the site you're visiting, especially one that needs your credit card, a VPN isn't meant to be a protection from them getting your info. Your ISP won't (or at least shouldn't) have a clue that you're visiting Hulu, should you be using a VPN, though.

You are mostly right. About your ISP, it would probably be very easy to know what you're up to, by comparing your data usage pattern against other online video users usage. Hulu and other services with heavy traffic probably have a specific traffic usage signature that they can identify, even if you are using a VPN.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[retchdog]

Foreigners can get a prepaid US credit card fairly easily. I'm not sure how easy those are to block, but it's probably at least as much of a moving target as identifying VPNs.

There is no conspiracy; they're just enforcing license terms in a simple and imho reasonable way. I have no idea what "insecure connections" I would be risking by not using a VPN, but it certainly hasn't been a problem for me yet. This just seems like more nerd entitlement syndrome to me. It's Hollywood's content, not yours.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

These license terms are not "reasonable," and nor is the enforcement; they're arbitrary and detrimental. It's usually scumbag copyright holders that force them to do this type of thing to begin with. One thing you can't do is call this stupid shit "reasonable."

There is no conspiracy

Almost every single time that's said about some giant company or government, it turns out to be wrong.

A better thing to do would be to not use Hulu; problem solved.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

Missed this bit of garbage:

This just seems like more nerd entitlement syndrome to me. It's Hollywood's content, not yours.

Entitlement? So, criticizing a company means you're entitled? You're holding a gun to their head and demanding they change their ways, or saying that you deserve everything? If not, then there is no entitlement; just criticism. If you think criticizing a company for its actions means you have "nerd entitlement syndrome," then you're a god damned idiot, and your definition of "entitlement" is completely worthless. I'm tired of people abusing these terms and using them to describe anyone who says anything they don't like about a company.

As for whether it's "Hollywood's content," I don't believe you can own content, although they certainly try. Problem is, it's not working out for them, and no matter how much people cry and scream, it will never work out. If Hulu is going to kick people off for using VPNs, many of those people will likely just find alternatives, 'legitimate' or not.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[Bengie]

It's Hollywood's content, not yours.

Actually, its the public content, Hollywood only gets a "temporary" distribution rights. Remember, content is culture and humans have a basic right to access culture. If we did not, then the government could make laws stating who can or can't speak or learn English or talk to each other.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[retchdog]

You're not much for reading comprehension, are you? I didn't say that the license terms were reasonable, I said that given what they are, Hulu's method of enforcement is sensible. No one, apart from a few paranoid freaks, uses a VPN to watch legal non-porn videos unless they're violating region restrictions. You're not entitled to free movies, and Hulu's pricing was collectively negotiated for Americans only. Since Hulu is worth about $1B, and is licensing content from companies worth ~100x that much, it doesn't exactly have a lot of room to negotiate.

Almost every single time that's said about some giant company or government, it turns out to be wrong.

Utter nonsense. The ratio [actual conspiracies]/[paranoid bullshit] on slashdot is damn near zero, though admittedly still not as close as I'd like.

A better thing to do would be to not use Hulu...

I agree; if this bothers you, that is probably the best solution.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[retchdog]

By "entitlement," I was referring to the asserted 'right' to use a VPN to access a service. There is no such right. I could have been more clear.

You should criticize Hulu all you want, but they're the middleman. You're not making a whole lot of sense. Do you agree that the problem is Hollywood's stupid licensing fetishism, or are you still maintaining that this is Hulu's conspiracy to track that you rewatch Strictly Sexual every Friday night and sell that information to OKCupid and Lubriderm?

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[retchdog]

No it isn't. It's public content once the copyright expires, which is effectively never. This should be changed.

I'm glad everyone agrees that the problem is Hollywood's copyright monopoly and licensing restrictions, and that this isn't a ridiculous conspiracy by Hulu to omg!!!track everyone!!!!

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

You're not much for reading comprehension, are you? I didn't say that the license terms were reasonable, I said that given what they are, Hulu's method of enforcement is sensible.

I read that and understood it. I do not think it is "sensible," as the license terms themselves are unreasonable, so enforcing them is unreasonable, no matter how effective the enforcement is.

No one, apart from a few paranoid freaks, uses a VPN to watch legal non-porn videos unless they're violating region restrictions.

Yes, people who actually care about being ever so slightly more anonymous are "paranoid freaks." Or, could it be that they use VPNs for other things too,

You're not entitled to free movies

No one said otherwise.

Utter nonsense. The ratio [actual conspiracies]/[paranoid bullshit] on slashdot is damn near zero, though admittedly still not as close as I'd like.

When it comes to privacy, almost every single company works hand-in-hand with the government to give them what they want. Especially the large companies that have tons of data. With the NSA's activities revealed (and you really should've known before), nothing is impossible. I have no clue what use Hulu could have, but the government always manages to surprise me with how far they're willing to go to harass people and invade our privacy.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

By "entitlement," I was referring to the asserted 'right' to use a VPN to access a service. There is no such right.

Did someone say there was such a right?

Do you agree that the problem is Hollywood's stupid licensing fetishism, or are you still maintaining that this is Hulu's conspiracy to track that you rewatch Strictly Sexual [imdb.com] every Friday night and sell that information to OKCupid and Lubriderm?

I don't even use Hulu, so it's not my problem, but I think it may very well be both at the exact same time.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[retchdog]

Fair enough, no one said that exactly. Still, Hulu licenses this content and 'pay' for it through advertising agreements. Americans have more money (for now), and are an easier target for advertisers, than other nationalities. That's why Hulu is restricted to Americans, and why for non-Americans to watch Hulu is stealing.

Now, since Hulu has to uphold their end of the contract, they have to keep non-Americans from watching Hulu. Thus they need to block VPNs. Is this clear enough for you? Maybe they are also datamining you, maybe they aren't. Have you read their ToS? Personally, I watch Hulu about twice a year or so, and have much bigger problems than people trying to sell me shit over the internet.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[koreanbabykilla]

almost every time? Are you fucking retarded? This is the internet. There are many many many more that arent even plausible than known true. Or did you still think the timecube guy is correct?

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[Kremmy]

Those changes to copyright were made without the consent of the public. It's one of those things where the letter of the law has become completely disconnected from the public at large. Now I couldn't tell you where the governments got this idea, but they seem to think that you can dictate law to a people and expect them to follow it, to the degree of having law enforcement officers take action to enforce laws that no one honestly believes in. That creates a situation where the people are just plain ignoring the laws because the laws don't honestly have anything to do with them. That creates a situation where the government is literally making shit up and locking people away for it. Which is exactly what kind of activity the copyright cartels are banking on. Oy.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

When it comes to accusations that some big company is violating people's privacy or working with the government to do so, it's true far too often.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[retchdog]

Like I said, it should be changed, but honestly, what consent of the public do you want? Our elected representatives support copyright by-and-large, yes, even slashdot's Patron Saint ROONNNNN PAAUULLLLL.

And direct democracy? Do you really think the majority wouldn't support copyright law if sold to them as "more jobs and more movies"?

So, yeah, I don't know if there isn't public consent. Most people seem pretty enthusiastic about it; they just want to have the best of both worlds and break the law for themselves while supporting the general idea.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[Kalriath]

How is it stealing at all? I pay for Hulu Plus, watch the commercials, and when I see something that I think is worth getting, I'll even circumvent yet more unnecessary regional restrictions in order to buy it. The only ads that are literally worthless to me are the ones for cars, Comcast, and not texting and driving in Nevada (actually, that's still relevant- it's illegal here too).

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[retchdog]

Just because the net outcome of action A is positive, doesn't mean that A is legal or morally desirable. This isn't exactly hard to understand.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[Shadowmist]

If they already have all that information, then why do they need to block VPNs? It seems like they could figure it out another way.

But is this just about the paid service?

Because the only reason you're using a VPN to watch Huluu is to bypass the regional restriction, which they are REQUIRED by their license terms to enforce.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[Shadowmist]

Now, since Hulu has to uphold their end of the contract, they have to keep non-Americans from watching Hulu. Thus they need to block VPNs. .

That's not accurate. You could be an American in London,and you're still not allowed to watch. You could be an illegal alien living in San Diego, and they couldn't care less. The requirement is the restriction of broadcasting, not viewership.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

The only reason? Some people use a VPN for everything, or for privacy. You say that there is only one reason, but that is false.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

Like I said, it should be changed, but honestly, what consent of the public do you want? Our elected representatives support copyright by-and-large, yes, even slashdot's Patron Saint ROONNNNN PAAUULLLLL.

However, people do not vote only for people they 100% agree with. Most end up voting for 'the lesser of two evils' (because our system is poorly designed and they're idiots) based on a select few issues that they agree with their chosen candidate on; other issues often get ignored. So even if our elected representatives agree with the current state of copyright policy, that doesn't mean the public at large does. Unless I misunderstood what you were saying.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[retchdog]

Well, yes, but the next fucking paragraph expresses my belief that a majority would vote for copyright extension, at least if packaged as "more jobs and more movies."

You may disagree with this if you wish, and I may be wrong, however if both representative and direct democracies would support the current system, then how is it not public consent?

You don't seem to be a moron, but you do consistently misread what I say. At least you acknowledge it.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[Kalriath]

No, it's not hard to understand. It's patently incorrect, but that's beside the point.

(Side note: it's not illegal either. It's a violation of the Terms of Service; but where I am, circumvention of technical prevention measures designed solely to enforce territorial restrictions is explicitly legal. So I'm not breaking local law, and Hulu isn't breaking US law by delivering me the content I'm paying for in good faith).

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

Yes, but there was nothing to show that the majority would do such a thing, other than a guess. The way you presented that sentence made it seem as if you were saying, "Our elected representatives agree with it, so the public does too."

You may disagree with this if you wish, and I may be wrong, however if both representative and direct democracies would support the current system, then how is it not public consent?

It would be.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[sjames]

It's in the framing. How many would support it if told they could be sued for millions if their kid (or the neighbor's kid) downloads a few movies?

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[brantondaveperson]

Right. But on the other hand some people are demonstrably using a VPN to foil geolocation of their IPs. Since Hulu are required to ensure that those who view their videos are in the US, and since they can't ensure that this is the case for those behind a VPN, they have no choice but to block VPN users. Sucks, I agree, but there it is. If you were bound by those licence terms, what would your argument be for allowing known VPN IPs?

The whole business model of refusing people's money because of where they live is pretty spectacularly retarded, but some people clearly think it's a good idea, and some of those people run Hulu, and that's the end of that.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[blackraven14250]

Hulu is entirely a branch of the content creation industry. It's owned by NBCUniversal, Fox and Disney-ABC. They don't even attempt to negotiate licensing terms - Hulu is wholly controlled by the content creators.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[Mathinker]

> Just because the net outcome of action A is positive, doesn't mean that A is legal

Yes, a lot of people agree with you that many laws are diametrically opposed to common sense and/or are legislated for reasons unrelated to the general good of society.

> or morally desirable. This isn't exactly hard to understand.

Uh, no. That only follows if you are talking about a deontological model of morality. If you prefer a normative model, your statement is absolutely false.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[Mathinker]

> and Hulu isn't breaking US law by delivering me the content I'm paying for in good faith

Well, that's not true, since Hulu doesn't have a license to distribute that content to you at the location you consume it. However, since Hulu is a service provider, it should not be held responsible for this infringement, as long as you are willing to lie to it that you are in the US when it asks you (that's my personal opinion, not what I actually believe might play out in court).

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[Mathinker]

Your logic is impeccable until you realize that all US IP addresses could potentially be being used by Americans who are actually currently abroad and running a personal VPN to their US domicile.

The decision to block or not is not arbitrary, and one could very well justify not blocking VPN addresses as long as the users actively represent themselves (by checking some kind of disclaimer checkbox) as being within the US. But since Hulu is more or less run directly by the content industry, I'm not surprised that they prefer to push foreign consumers towards infringement rather than servicing them.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[Kalriath]

I believe that's how it plays out. Hulu takes measures to block me, I circumvent those measures and lie to them. It's legal where I am, and Hulu can claim plausible deniability to which I suspect no judge would argue.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[Mathinker]

> no judge

Well, there are judges, and there are judges.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[L4t3r4lu5]

If Netflix US started doing this, you can bet they'd start hemorrhaging subscribers from the UK. UK Netflix is a collection of B- / straight to TV movies, decade old cinema titles, and second rate TV series, only they also have House, Breaking Bad, and House of Cards. 99% of the content is worthless. I still subscribe only because I can access the US content over a VPN / using a DNS changing addon.

Having said that, do you know what works really well over a VPN?

Bittorrent.

Re: There is no conspiracy.

[Shadowmist]

Exactly, it's the same kind of ridiculous region lock they put on CDs and game consoles. It's ultimately stupid, previously they were serving their ads worldwide, and now they've restricted it to the U.S. To an advertiser how exactly would this make any sense?

And of course someone will say the foreigners can't understand the ads, but then how are they understanding the shows? (one is lucky if it even has CC, much less foreign subtitles...)

The region locks are not "ridiculous". Media and goods are sold for different prices per region. If you're looking for a reason for any move made, there's usually money involved.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[retchdog]

Oh for fucksake, who cares about this corner case? What I said covers 99% of their business.

Re:There is no conspiracy.

[retchdog]

normative morality is bullshit.

How terrible

[Leo Sasquatch]

I mean, it's not as if there's any other sites on the net where you can get streaming video, or canned video, or torrents, or people sharing their favourite shows.

It's not like it takes about 5 mouse-clicks to find an alternate source for practically anything. No, Hulu clearly have everyone completely over a barrel and we must just do everything they say if we're to be allowed to consume their entertainment the way they want us to.

Re:How terrible

[Kalriath]

Because they care about following the law, and have moral fiber?

Re:How terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, it's not as if there's any other sites on the net where you can get streaming video, or canned video, or torrents, or people sharing their favourite shows.

It's not like it takes about 5 mouse-clicks to find an alternate source for practically anything. No, Hulu clearly have everyone completely over a barrel and we must just do everything they say if we're to be allowed to consume their entertainment the way they want us to.

Yeah, we'll show 'em! In fact, let's build a list of all those alternatives out there! Let's see, there's Netflix...and....uh...well.....uh...

(maybe you get the fucking point now. They ARE a juggernaut whether you like it or not, and are one of only a handful who actually have any stake in the game. And no, mouse-hunting for the content through the virus-infested waters of illegal content providers is not a viable alternative here)

Re:How terrible

[LookIntoTheFuture]

Because they care about following the law, and have moral fiber?

Hulu is partially owned by NBC whose stock symbol is GE. A publicly owned corporation can not and does not have "moral fiber". That's an impossibility.

Re:How terrible

[Kalriath]

Irrelevant. The point relates to the question "why bother with the hassle when you can get the same thing elsewhere, free, with no hassle?" which raises the question as to why you would go to all the effort to circumvent the restrictions on Hulu, et al, when you could just pirate it.

Re:How terrible

[LookIntoTheFuture]

Sorry. I missed that bit. :)

Re:How terrible

[Kalriath]

It was a score 0 comment. Those have a tendency to disappear when viewing :/

Re:How terrible

[LookIntoTheFuture]

You're right. There's few things more humbling than looking like an ass in a public space. Damn, it sucks. Have a good night.

Re:How terrible

[Kalriath]

Because if you really want things to change, you should make sure you have the moral high ground first.

Not their fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh I'm sure they think it's just as senseless, but if they don't restrict it, then Hollywood won't let them use their IP as cheaply as otherwise (or at all). I'm not associated with Hulu but I've worked for another internet streaming company, and trust us, we really hate Hollywood restrictions--they are shoved down our throats, we have no choice.

Do you /really/ think devs in the industry would implement DRM if we didn't have to? It's a pain in the neck to code and it keeps some of our customer base from using it at all! Half of us are Linux users at home and are just as pissed as you are when things won't work with it.

Re:Not their fault

[Solozerk]

Do you /really/ think devs in the industry would implement DRM if we didn't have to? It's a pain in the neck to code and it keeps some of our customer base from using it at all! Half of us are Linux users at home and are just as pissed as you are when things won't work with it.

Then leave. Find a job elsewhere. Or even better: spend some of your free time writing and publishing (anonymously, of course - use tor) DRM-defeating software based on what you implemented at work - you already have the tech details since you implemented the DRM stuff (or just publish the tech details anonymously and let others implement the stuff). They can't continue playing this kind of games if no developer are helping them.

And I don't think doing so would stop the release or funding of entertainment stuff, either (be it games, movies or music); people have been making music & art for thousand of years without that kind of shit, and people are genuinely ready to pay for content if it's quality, easily available, and reasonably priced; even if it's available elsewhere for free. They are also ready to pay to finance that kind of development even when a release is not certain (look at the many successful crowdfunded projects). It would certainly decrease the amount of shitty games/movies created, though.

The very fact that we have the technological capability to massively distribute culture at a very low cost and we don't because of greed/artificially enforced scarcity is truly depressing.

Re:Not their fault

[rogoshen1]

man, while DRM is total bullshit, suggesting someone to do something that almost certainly would end with them getting fired (that's the best case, worse is being sued into oblivion) is just as bad.

Re:Not their fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Previous AC again: The streaming we have now is a lot better for our culture than what we had 10 years ago, and it's a lot more accessible to more people and cheaper than DVDs. I'm very okay with this kind of "freedom" proceeding slowly, even taking a couple steps backwards once in a while, because the advancements that it does bring are completely worth it when compared to not-100%-perfect ethical mores. It's region control of an entertainment luxury, not killing puppies...I don't think I would call it "depressing".

Technology advances the fastest when people with LOTS of money have their way, and while it's a very imperfect system, it's not a net harm to our culture by any stretch. It certainly advances a lot faster than if the giant Hollywood moguls weren't throwing money at it, and I have faith that--eventually--it will approach the kind of freedom you're after.

(I did leave that company a few years back, but certainly not because information wants to be free!)

Re:Not their fault

[Hadlock]

Hollywood owns Hulu, jointly owned by several studios and broadcasters, in fact. The idea was to own and control content distribution of TV over the internet while avoiding fracturing the market, and they've done a pretty good job of it.

Re:Not their fault

[Solozerk]

I'm very okay with this kind of "freedom" proceeding slowly, even taking a couple steps backwards once in a while, because the advancements that it does bring are completely worth it when compared to not-100%-perfect ethical mores.

I'm not - why should we settle for small steps, when we already have the capability to make giant ones ? where would we be right now as a species if even half the money spent in DRM schemes/IP protection stuff had been thrown in global network deployment (there are still large parts of the planet's population with no access to the Internet, or even no electricity) and putting online courses/teaching material/culture online ?

Technology advances the fastest when people with LOTS of money have their way

While the rest of your post seems pretty reasonable and possibly less utopic/optimistic than mine, this I strongly doubt. It seems to me that the very resources inequalities we're seeing currently - the very fact that some people posess thousands times more money/power than most - is a major part of such an artificially enforced scarcity. It's just concentration of power, and people in power wanting to keep that power.

Maybe I'm just too young / not cynical (call it realistic if you will) enough; that being said, once again, having the capability to diffuse culture massively and willingly limiting that capability seems like a form of madness to me. Makes you wonder what'll happen when material, real-life scarcity will no longer be an issue (and I personally think we're not that far of).

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

[Jane Q. Public]

man, while DRM is total bullshit, suggesting someone to do something that almost certainly would end with them getting fired (that's the best case, worse is being sued into oblivion) is just as bad.

Um... you didn't get that GP was recommending they quit anyway?

There DOES come a point at which your principles are worth more than a fat paycheck. Some people seem to have forgotten this.

Re:Not their fault

[russotto]

Oh I'm sure they think it's just as senseless, but if they don't restrict it, then Hollywood won't let them use their IP as cheaply as otherwise (or at all).

Hulu IS Hollywood. They're not so much a streaming-media company as a PR move so Hollywood can say "See, look, we even have Hulu and these freetards still pirate! You need to pass the Ban Computers And Throw Everyone In Pound Me In The Ass Federal Prison Act NOW!"

Re:Not their fault

[rogoshen1]

well no shit. but leaking details on how to circumvent what you're doing is not the solution. Sometimes the opportunity to snark outweighs reading comprehension i guess.

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.

Re:Not their fault

[AmiMoJo]

The market is fractured. On the one hand you have Hulu, on the other you have BitTorrent. Hulu seems to be losing at the moment due to poor availability in most countries.

I subscribed to Netflix for a while but my ISP is broken (Virgin Media) so I had to give that up. Amazon Streaming Video looks interesting but for some reason the Panasonic smart TV app isn't available in the UK and I don't want to watch it on my phone. So, Pirate Bay it is then. I don't feel bad, I offered my money but they won't take it.

Re:Not their fault

[complete loony]

You can still have that price curve without region locking content. Heck you can do it with a single streaming service. Pay more for the higher bit-rate version, pay less after 6 months...

If I can get the bandwidth from Australia (though I probably can't), let me stream the content. If you don't I'll pirate it from someone who can. Heck that's the main reason we pirate so much down here. None of the major players have been giving us what we actually want, when we want it, for a price and level of convenience that makes it compelling.

Re:Not their fault

[Jane Q. Public]

well no shit. but leaking details on how to circumvent what you're doing is not the solution. Sometimes the opportunity to snark outweighs reading comprehension i guess.

Nothing wrong with MY reading comprehension. GP didn't recommend "leaking" anything, he recommended working on a separate, outside software project to circumvent the DRM.

Granted, that still could get you fired. But it isn't "leaking". And I repeat: GP had already recommended that he quit anyway. And I repeat: there are times when principle is worth more than a fat paycheck.

Re:Not their fault

[Sark666]

I always kind of wished this wasn't possible. Has it always been possible? Meaning sites like http://ip-to-country.webhostin... that track this stuff, how do they know some new isp has this block of ip addresses and is from country X? Was this possible in say 1997?

For ex. if a brand new small local isp springs up is there ever a window where their block of ip addresses is not yet geo-located yet?

Re:Not their fault

[longk]

Nice story, but offering Hulu to people doesn't mean the industry has to lose money. All Hulu has to do is verify people's real address and serve them relevant ads. If someone uses a VPN, charge them 50 cents so their credit card issuer reveals their country of residence. Hell, charge them a Netflix-like amount of $7.99. Keep in mind that all these VPN'ers are already shelling out cash to their VPN, VPS or DNS service. Money is NOT the issue here.

Re:Not their fault

[DriveDog]

I'd have to modify that a bit. "Technology advances the fastest when a few people with vision and LOTS of money have their way". Like them or not, imperfect that they are, people like Elon Musk push us forward. People who only milk cash cows hold us back.

Welcome to the 21st century

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

where you can find TV set the size of the Berlin wall with a resolution so high you can't see the pixels up close, so thin they can be hung on the wall and look like paintings, able to display movies in 3D, almost affordable by ordinary people, and that display content controlled by cartels who decide who can watch what, where, how and for how much, like in the middle ages.

Re:Welcome to the 21st century

[tepples]

How is it controlled by cartels? You can watch video that you have produced or video under a Creative Commons license on nearly any device in any country. So why, seriously, isn't such video good enough as of 2014?

Re:My VPN service still works

[Luckyo]

I suspect most will continue to work, because they will simply change their IP ranges if providing access to Hulu is at all important for them.

You can't really block someone on the internet reliably with an IP ban. Or well, you can, but the effort you'll need to keep on swatting the changing IP addresses is going to be significant.

Re:And people will just bend over too.

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

Right. I'll just drop Comcast and switch to the other ISP with decent speeds in my area: Comcast.

Well, the situation is most certainly not the same with Hulu. It's trivial to find another place to watch such videos, 'legitimate' or not.

Privacy?

[rjstanford]

Generally when you sign up for a paid service with license terms, part of the deal is sacrificing enough of your privacy to be able to sign the deal and identify yourself as a licensed customer (even for a free service) when you try to use it.

Re:And people will just bend over too.

[Scowler]

That's probably true for Hulu Plus, but I doubt it's true for freebie Hulu.

Use your own VPS instead

[dejanc]

1. Rent a cheap VPS
2. Tunnel connection through it (e.g. via a SOCKS proxy) or set up your own VPN
3. Keep the IP to yourself so you don't get flagged

That's how I get to watch BBC's premiers at the same time people in London do, and if I care about something in the US, I just switch to another VPS.

Re: Use your own VPS instead

[Anonymous Coward]

That is exactly what I did, still got blocked.

Re: Use your own VPS instead

[ThatsMyNick]

A handful of VPS provider's IP are banned. The ones that run popular proxies, and the really huge ones. It is not worth if for them to go after all VPSes. The cost-benefit just doesnt work out.

Re:Use your own VPS instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Just tried this with AWS, they are also blocking chucks of aws ips...

Re:Use your own VPS instead

[cboslin]

1. Rent a cheap VPS 2. Tunnel connection through it (e.g. via a SOCKS proxy) or set up your own VPN 3. Keep the IP to yourself so you don't get flagged That's how I get to watch BBC's premiers at the same time people in London do, and if I care about something in the US, I just switch to another VPS.

Why was this modded down, unless some shill does not want others to know how to do it, perhaps?

Seems that if you 'mask' the VPN IP Address, as 'your IP address', while it would no longer be anonymous, your VPN should not get flagged as being either a service or from a foreign country.

Enjoy your overages

[tepples]

Xfinity Internet, the home ISP operated by Comcast, has (or had) a 250 GB per month data cap. Cellular providers' data caps are one to two orders of magnitude smaller than that. If you try to watch a lot of Hulu on that, enjoy your $10 per GB overages.

Cheap VPN Howto

[goruka]

1) Rent AWS or any other VPS provider in the US, or just ask a friend to give you an account in his box.
2) ssh -D proxyport
3) configure proxy on localhost:proxyport

watch hulu

Re:Cheap VPN Howto

[Punto]

AWS is one of the "VPN" services that were blocked.

Re:Cheap VPN Howto

[bloodhawk]

As someone that personally already blocks AWS where I work due to its use as an attack platform and anonymous proxy I would be shocked if this wasn't one of the first address ranges blocked.

If Netflix is in Canada, why isn't Hulu?

[tepples]

Hulu has no legal way to provide a global service.

Hulu could open Hulu Canada and license the rights for Canada from the copyright owners. Hulu could open Hulu Britain and license the rights for Ireland and Great Britain from the copyright owners. Hulu currently happens to choose not to do so.

Re:If Netflix is in Canada, why isn't Hulu?

[WillAffleckUW]

Some of the stuff that is "copyright" under US law is out of copyright in Canada, the UK, and the EU.

This is why TPP is such a bad idea.

If I want to watch early TV shows, it's none of their business.

Re:If Netflix is in Canada, why isn't Hulu?

[AudioEfex]

Hulu could open Hulu Canada and license the rights for Canada from the copyright owners. Hulu could open Hulu Britain and license the rights for Ireland and Great Britain from the copyright owners. Hulu currently happens to choose not to do so.

Oh please. Or are you being obtuse on purpose?

Hulu is a company created to serve the US market. They have no responsibility to open up open up in every damn country worldwide. There are good reasons they don't - and why no one else really does, either. Netflix is just at snail speed in its addition of international support, even with all the cash and influence they have these days (and often movie licensing is easier with one clear owner than television where rights can be owned by all number of folks, many of whom have no collective bargaining, official or not).

The reason for this is two-fold. One, because licensing agreements are so complex and extremely territorial (one studio might handle US distribution, another studio, even a competitor, may have international rights), you would pretty much literally have to start from scratch for each country. Netflix isn't going one by one in Europe because it's fun, it's because it's like starting up a new licensing business each time. Screw the tech, it's the licensing agreements and making that profitable to purchase for that country to make a service that is the issue.

Two, and just as important, is the fact that the majority of the world who has commercial broadband have caps. Not all, but a good percentage. So while streaming services are all the rage in the US because of our mostly AYCE, one-flat-rate broadband, it's never going to be as popular in other markets, so streaming services have to somehow get licensing agreements for an entire library, and somehow do it cheap enough to make it worth doing business at all with what is always going to be a limited audience to begin with, in each new country.

In the US, we are in the middle of the Golden Age of Streaming - GAS - which, eventually, one runs out of - as we will our streaming fetish. ISP's are just waiting to pull the caps down in the US, they already have been testing it. Once they do, either streaming will die off, or, sweetheart deals get made with Netflix/Hulu/Amazon/etc. with the ISP's, keeping their content out of the caps, which means those services are going to get much much more expensive (no more $7.99 a month, think like ten times that...just like the cable bill you thought was so smart in getting rid of to become a streamer - they are gonna make you pay one way, or another).

As to the story itself, I'm sorry, if you are into "living off the grid" or whatever, and feel you can't view Hulu without a VPN, or you are in hiding and cannot use anything but a VPN, you probably have more important things to worry about than catching up with Bones on Hulu. To those mad about them being evil to non-US residents, blame Hollywood and the mess they have made of rights issues - even more accurately, all the unions and executives that conspire to make all that stuff cost so damn much to make in the first place which make the rights so valuable to control tightly. Does it really take 300 million dollars to make a film? No more than an aspirin costs the hospital $35 or a toilet seat costs the Army $575.

I can't say I applaud Hulu, but I can say I don't blame them. They are a good service and to stay that way, they have to stay within the boundaries of the legal agreements they have made in order to exist. All this "reasonable" vs "unreasonable" is irrelevant - it was a smart business move for them in many ways, even though some folks just won't get that because they are irritated their micro-hack no longer works.

Re:If Netflix is in Canada, why isn't Hulu?

[ratboy666]

Obtuse?

Hulu is a consortium that OWNs the copyright to the material. Are you missing this point for some reason?

If the consortium members have "licensed" away their OWN rights -- would be shortsighted of them.

As to your supposed "GAS" (golden age of streaming). Um. You do realize that broadband is better in a lot of other non-US places, right?

I personally don't care. Hey, I like "Bones" and it is available on Netflix. Happy enough to give them my money. And, it's commercial-free. If Hulu doesn't want my viewership (I live in Canada, and we do have Ford, Apple, and Coke here, too), I'll be happy to give my custom to Netflix. Suck it.

But, tell LG about it, ok (for example)? I mean, it COMES with a HULU app. That is completely useless to me. I don't even know HOW TO REMOVE THAT SUCKER. Even though LG is forced to produce Bilingual packaging for my region, they do not bother to remove features that CANNOT be used. Is this an attempt by a Korean company to somehow make me envy USAians? Or is is this ADVERTISING BY FUCKING HULU. So, it doesn't work. About the only thing ADVERTISING HULU and then not making it available will do is encourage me to use something like a VPS just to sneak a peak at (whatever the hell it is that I'm missing). Again, SUCK IT.

HULU - FOAD.

Your truly,
A Canuck.
With an LG TV
And no interest in HULU

Re:If Netflix is in Canada, why isn't Hulu?

[Shados]

First, a lot of the bilingual packaging is used in the US too. Often they use the same package for all of north america. I'm Canadian too, but living in the US, and it surprised me just how much of it is exactly the same as the Canadian package, complete with Quebec-compliant french.

Second, its the same as everything else: in Canada, iTune is a shadow of what it is here, Amazon has a fraction of the inventory, Netflix is a streaming ghost town with only a handful of meaningful shows (remember when it just launched in Canada? Most of its content was older than I am...and I'm pretty old...)

Re:If Netflix is in Canada, why isn't Hulu?

[Hackysack]

I'm in Canada, and I don't use Hulu.

The point though, is that for people wanting to pay for the content they consume, there needs to be options.

If you don't allow me a timely (ie: available at the same time as the earliest showing somewhere else in the world), reasonably priced (ie: charge me for the show, not for a base tier + advanced tier + channel subscription costs), high quality (1080p) steam that I can pay for; then I will just torrent or otherwise pirate said content.

Personally I wouldn't ever do Hulu as I understand that they show advertising to paying subscribers. I refuse to support advertising.

Re:If Netflix is in Canada, why isn't Hulu?

[serviscope_minor]

If you don't allow me a timely (ie: available at the same time as the earliest showing somewhere else in the world), reasonably priced (ie: charge me for the show, not for a base tier + advanced tier + channel subscription costs), high quality (1080p) steam that I can pay for; then I will just torrent or otherwise pirate said content.

It's quite incredible. Hollywood seems to be absoloutely determined to make TBP the best and most reliable way of getting movies, regardless of cost. It seems as soon as some other servie comes up that's good they do all they can to stop people bloody well paying for stuff.

I mean the very newve of people thinking they can pay for movies to watch.

Re:OpenSSL

[The MAZZTer]

I don't even see how that line is relevant to anything. If you're accessing it through VPN, the link from the VPN to Hulu is still going to be unencrypted due to lack of SSL.

Choose an area

[tepples]

Right. I'll just drop Comcast and switch to the other ISP with decent speeds in my area: Comcast.

Key words: "my area". I know it's not for everyone, but some people have exercised the option of choosing a different area in which to live. Others agree.

Re:Choose an area

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

I'm not going to move from the house I bought and paid for so I can get more options for ISPs. Maybe other people were willing to go that far (or maybe they were moving anyway, and decided they should factor in the number ISPs available in a given area), but I'm not.

Re:Choose an area

[lgw]

I would move to get sewer service over septic (yes, subjective), to get reliable electric service over rotating brownouts: utilities matter.

Re:Choose an area

[cboslin]

I agree that anyone with a house paid off and a job in their area is not going to move. However, that same person, with a house paid off, but no job, better move or have investments paying a livable wage or the property taxes will eventually cost their heirs the home.

Those looking for a job, should seriously consider making the jump to a Symmetrical FTTH community sooner rather than later.

Of course you can always get DSL, dd-WRT on a supported firewall/router, has shown me that unthrottled DSL is faster than over 80% of throttled cable service. Remember, 100% of cable internet service is throttled, its only a matter of how much, not if. In a few areas where symmetrical FTTH competition exists and the oligopoly has not been able to pass legislation (see red states especially) at the state level to prevent competition, they actually throttle less than normal, thus only there is Cable internet faster than DSL.

If you are shopping for internet access and can not get symmetrical FTTH, than go DSL for Internet. If you want cable for TV and movies, so be it, but never package anything else with it. No phone, no Internet with Cable TV & movies unless you want to be gouged forever. As that will cost you much, much more over time, then getting them separately. Better just to go straight to DSL for internet, if you can not get FTTH.

Watch something other than mainstream US TV

[tepples]

These license terms are not "reasonable," and nor is the enforcement; they're arbitrary and detrimental.

Then boycott the MPAA. If a TV producer is requiring Hulu to refuse you service, take your eyeballs elsewhere. Instead, you can always watch video under a Creative Commons license, or produce video yourself.

VPS + OpenVPN

[corychristison]

One thing the USA has is cheap Virtual Private Servers. I've seen them as low as $25/year. That plus a little bit of time to read up on setting up OpenVPN or a SOCKS proxy would be worth it.

Not only could you tunnel Hulu, you could tunnel many other services. Maybe store some encrypted backups of important data if you really need to justify the cost.

make your own tunlr clone

[Corporate Gadfly]

Rent a cheap VPS and run your own tunlr clone (similar to other commercial DNS-based geo-unlocking services like Unlocator, unblockus, etc.)
http://corporate-gadfly.github...

Grrr.

[astro]

I am a citizen of the USA, and I pay monthly for services (not Hulu) that I am not easily able to watch in my country of residence, Germany. It's really annoying to have restrictions on content that I PAY FOR.

I don't pay Hulu, I am not interested in their content, but there is a certain other major US-based content network that lulls me to sleep with usually shitty (but occasionally brilliant) movies and television shows.

I did get off the commercial VPN services and roll my own OpenVPN, as suggested by others here - It's not that hard. But I still think this whole thing is obnoxious and stinks. If I wanted to pay USD 7.99 per month for content and another 13 on top for the commercial VPN I was using - all to US companies and as an American citizen, why in the hell would they refuse my money and block my enjoyment of their services?

Re:Grrr.

[Shados]

Content is licensed by locations, which means in this case its for US residents. Your citizenship has jack squat to do with it. That's why someone visiting the US in vacation can and you can't.

You can complain about the licensing model, sure, but this isn't a government service. Your citizenship means nothing in this argument.

Re:Grrr.

[FatLittleMonkey]

However, the BBC makes only the most token efforts to block foreign viewers. Here in Australia, I can watch BBC iPlayer content just by adding an "X-Forwarded For" tag to the browser header (I use one of the BBC's own IP addresses.)

Likewise for local content from outside Australia. Likewise for providers like the Comedy Channel in the US. No proxies or other trickery required. Just change the tag in the header to an IP from the nation of the streamer, bam, done.

Hulu, otoh, actively hunts down each and every work-around as if it were a personal insult.

Hello, they are douchebags, what is the problem?

[mauriceh]

To quote from Wikipedia:
"Hulu is a joint venture of NBCUniversal Television Group (Comcast),[5] Fox Broadcasting Company (21st Century Fox) and Disney–ABC Television Group (The Walt Disney Company),[6] with funding by Providence Equity Partners, the owner of Newport Television, which made a US$100 million equity investment and received a 10% stake.[7] In October 2012, Providence sold its 10% stake in Hulu.[8]"

So why exactly are you surprised?

BBC

[jacobsm]

I'd be really PO'd if the BBC did this. How else can I watch new episodes of Doctor Who prior to them being shown on BBC America?

hulu should be happy anyone is watching

[Anonymous Coward]

This service makes paying customers watch commercials. When you pay, all you get is 720i def.
But you still have to watch commercials. Bulls***.
Ill stay with Netflix, Thank You.

Most likely a plot by Harper to spy on Canucks

[WillAffleckUW]

After all, Canada isn't in the US, and once he crushes the CBC he can impose mind control.

Re:Most likely a plot by Harper to spy on Canucks

[Mashiki]

Oh please. So few Canadians actually watch the CBC, that if it didn't have HNIC for years it would have died on it's own. That's what happens when you get outside of the major metropolitan "centres of the universe aka Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa" and get into the rest of the country, where no one pay's attention to the hyper-elitism that the CBC likes to spew. Besides, 90% plus of the programming on the CBC is recycled American programming anyway.

P2P VPN?

[Kaenneth]

Tor would be overkill for this, but is there any lighter-weight p2p based VPN system, ideally where you could select you out node's country or something?

I'd let a Brit route through my home connection a little, if I could get to the BBC sites in return.

Re:P2P VPN?

[FatLittleMonkey]

is there any lighter-weight p2p based VPN system, [...] I'd let a Brit route through my home connection a little, if I could get to the BBC sites in return.

While this is a lovely idea, it is unnecessary for you. BBC doesn't block any workarounds.

For eg, if you're using Firefox, use the ModifyHeaders addon, or an equivalent. Add an "X-Forwarded For" tag to your browser header with a UK IP address. I use one of the BBC's own addresses. Works fine. (There are also location-spoofer addons that have a preprogrammed list of IPs for different nations, just click on the nation of your choice.)

This method works with almost all region-blocking streamers. BBC. CBC. Comedy Channel. YouTube.

All except Hulu.

Watch it live the way the BBC intended

[davidwr]

Go to Great Britain and watch it live on a taxed television set.

Oh, you mean how can you watch it without the hassles of international travel? Why didn't you say so in the first place? :^)

If BBC got smart, it would change its international licensing agreements with companies like BBC America to reserve the right to show all future shows world-wide on an on-demand, a la carte basis. It might have to agree to charge a minimum-but-affordable per-episode fee to not completely gut the overseas television market.

If it did this for future seasons of Dr. Who, for example, it might charge a per-episode fee so that if someone legally paid for each episode, they would pay several times what they would if they waited until the end of the season and bought the DVD. Yes, die-hards with money to burn would do it, and yes, people would invite their friends over just like they do now, but at least it would be legal. It would also be priced high enough that there would be a market for cable networks like BBC America to buy the rights to air the shows. Those same die-hards would probably buy the DVDs anyways because they tend to be the kind of people who like the DVD extras and they like to have them on their shelves to show their friends how much of a die-hard they really are.

Re:And people will just bend over too.

[Kalriath]

Probably not the case - I suspect that Hulu Plus is actually where more of the customers use a VPN. Foreigners with no local equivalent, using prepaid credit cards, are probably one of Hulu's major customer groups.

Hulu to studios: "You leave money on the table."

[tepples]

Because they don't really have that information.

Why can't Hulu encourage the copyright owners to provide that information? Hulu could tell the studios that otherwise, they are leaving money on the table.

There may not even be a licensee in that particular country.

Then why can't Hulu sign a deal to be the first such licensee? Hulu could tell the studios that otherwise, they are leaving money on the table.

U.S. Military outside the U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a huge number of u.s. Military living outside the U.S. And paying for hulu plus. In order to access the service and protect their information, they utilize a VPN service. Now with hulls new policy, this will no longer be possible. Hulu better resolve this quickly or there a mass cancellation of hulu.

Reading some hulu updates, they are concerned about pirates of the content, they should be able to encode the user associated with the piracy in the the video stream, holding the pirates accountable.

Time to sell the hulu stock now!

Re:Hulu to studios: "You leave money on the table.

[Your.Master]

It's a great question, and I don't know the answer, but nobody is doing it in practice.

Netflix in Canada vs. the US has an overlapping set of shows, but there are a set of Canada-only shows and a (much larger) set of US-only shows. Why? I don't know. Maybe just negotiating tactics, or maybe they feel the price the content producers are sticking to can't be recovered in a Canadian demographic like it can in a US demographic.

Orly?

[Nexion]

I have netflix currently and was pondering looking at other providers. I guess Hulu is off the list of prospects as I'm not sure they will work with my current VPN provider.

Re:Well let me just say that....

[Shados]

Pretty much. People going halfway for licenses to appease their conscience is just dumb.

While probably an exception here, I don't mind intellectual property laws (and I still follow the ones I don't like....if I just ignore them they wont get changed), but either you do, or you don't. Going in the middle is silly.

Thats like people getting 1 MSDN license and then deploying the software on all their computers to use for day to day usage. Thats not what the license is for. If you're not going to go by the license, just pirate the damn thing. If you're going to screw over the license-holder anyway, why hurt yourself in the process? It makes no sense.

Re:Hello, they are douchebags, what is the problem

[RyoShin]

Aye. The only reason I use Hulu primarily is because I can get it for free, and in exchange for that I'm fine with the ads. But the minute that the free version goes away, or the average commercial time per show outpaces regular TV (right now I believe it's 25% less or so) I will completely drop them and get a Netflix account.

If Hulu Plus were ad free or, hell, I could just watch the "Free" content with no ads for the same (or even double!) the price, I would have signed up years ago. Their excuse for still having ads when Hulu Plus was first announced (dunno if they still cling to it) was that the subscription fees are strictly for paying for the licensing fees of the "expanded content" (which doesn't seem that expanded,) but I (and others here, it seems) suspect that Hulu is an ad-delivery network, where the ads are supported by content, and closing the VPNs was about keeping their various ways of tracking people from becoming less effective.

Personally, I'm done paying for ads. It's the same reason I don't buy magazines anymore; I had a subscription to Wired for a few years, but when I realized that each issue contained more pages of ads than content I stopped renewing (I spent a fun 10 minutes finding and ripping out every page in one issue that was an ad on both sides, and after that the issue felt 1/4 lighter and still had ads almost every other page.) I'm willing to deal with ads or pay money (as possible), but not both.

Re:And people will just bend over too.

[bloodhawk]

yep, I use a VPN for Netflix and Hulu, I happily pay for the service, but if they block those I won't bother finding new ways around it, I will just go back to pirating the content, if they don't want my money fine!

Re: BS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or is it that someone might be snooping on your dirty little secret that you watch My Little Pony when no one is home? The only possible concern is for people who use the same passwords on multiple services and that someone could snoop and suddenly get your Warcraft password.

Wrong. Encrypt only "important" stuff, and people know exactly where to look for the juicy stuff. Encrypt everything, and people don't know where to start.

Re: BS!

[davidhoude]

You should be forcing SSL from the start and advertising SSL URL's only. Having mixed content leads to MITM attacks using stuff like sslstrip. While your points are mostly true, it is just shitty practice that you shouldn't expect from such a large company.

Re:BTW!

[flyneye]

"Hulu hasn't even implemented SSL on its site."

          SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Damn, keep your mouth shut!
Man, I can"t take you anywhere!

Sorry.

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment is not available in your country.

Fuck Hulu!

[LSDelirious]

Shows always seem to get stuck buffering for extended periods after a minute or two of play, yet the commercials always load and play smooth as silk. No thanks

Known VPN addresses

[Karmashock]

That is the problem. VPN providers need to not have blocks of IP addresses but rather a constantly shifting cloud of addresses that are not especially associated with anyone. Possibly associated with the ISP but not any specific business.

Certainly the VPNs could have dynamic ips?

Canceled my subscription

[Nocturrne]

I use VPN 24/7, even when I am at home in the US. Sure enough, it is not working now. Too bad. Cancelled my subscription today. I guess the content owners don't want my money, so I will go back to "free" sources.

Capitalism

[Mr_Plattz]

Why hasn't the free market stepped in here? I don't understand why globally, someone isn't taking this opportunity. I understand the cable companies and networks hold the monopolies, and that's where the governments step in. If the governments don't step in, piracy will happily take the lead. Maybe we need an App for our Apple TV/Roku/Chromecast that stream Russian's or Chinese channels that happen to be the popular network show and channels.

Just so I'm completely clear. I pay Foxtel $120/month in Australia to stream non-HD garbage to me. I would happily pay the TV network channels directly each $10/pm to let me stream the same channel and cut the middleman (cable) out of the loop. Or an Internet TV provider $110/pm.

Re:Capitalism

[shirro]

I pay Foxtel $120/month in Australia to stream non-HD garbage to me.

Well there is the problem. Foxtel has protected its monopoly by signing up exclusive deals and they can outbid anyone else thanks to the money they get from subscribers willing to pay $120/month. The people who do the "right thing" and pay the ridiculous prices contribute to the problems for Australian consumers. Hollywood studios who have signed these exclusive deals and who control services like Hulu have no real option but uphold restrictions to meet their contracts.

Usually the correct answer with anything owned by News Corporation is to block it, burn it, wipe your arse on it, but never, ever pay for it. You will never get your $10/month service while Foxtel can outbid them by charging ten times the price.

Re:Capitalism

[Richy_T]

Free market? lol. Te;; me when you see one.

This makes no sense

[gonnagetya]

If I was Hollywood, I wouldn't care if foreigners were accessing Hulu using VPNs. If they're technically capable of using VPNs in the first place then they're probably also capable of obtaining torrents, and I'd prefer them using Hulu and seeing ads and the like and keeping things reasonably legal then cutting them off and giving them yet another reason to say "fuck it" and move straight to torrents.

Fucking idiots these Hollywood guys are. They want all the power at all costs.

Re:Hulu to studios: "You leave money on the table.

[FatLittleMonkey]

Why can't Hulu encourage the copyright owners to provide that information?

Then why can't Hulu sign a deal to be the first such licensee? Hulu could tell the studios that otherwise, they are leaving money on the table.

Given that Hulu is owned by the studios, so it's worse than you think. If any streamer could get world-wide licensing, it's Hulu.

But here's a better question: With so many countries so eager to (secretly) negotiate IP treaties, why isn't access rights ever something they sort out once and for all?

"We need uniformity of IP laws..." Great, give us uniform access rights. "BUT BUT... DIFFERENTIATED MARKET PRICING!" Then you don't really "need" uniform IP laws either.

Re:And people will just bend over too.

[sudon't]

What bloodhawk said. The MPAA and RIAA just never seem to learn. I swear, it's like they want you to pirate. Here, some foreigners (I'm in the US) are willing to pay for convenient access to their lousy content, but no, they can't allow that for some fucking reason. Well, at least these people have their VPN already, so that they can download torrents in peace.

Re:And people will just bend over too.

[sudon't]

Man, what country do you live in? Here in the US, you have two choices: The local cable internet monopoly, or nothing. Unless you seriously consider wireless phone data an option.

Seems fair

[fa2k]

The content cartels are free make cold judgements of whether to provide services at all in some areas, even if they are shooting themselves in their feet. The blocks on IP addresses work surprisingly well (few false positive blockings), and are a technological manifestation of the terms of use or contract. People using VPNs are breaching those rules (and maybe copyright, but it's not clear with streaming). It seems contradictory that many people defend using VPNs yet are against torrenting.

Contract dating back to pre-2000s

[tepples]

It's probably some decades-long exclusive deal covering "media now known or hereinafter invented" that the studio signed with a territorial distributor before home broadband was invented.

Hulu is a criminal organization.

[Cammi]

Remember when Hulu Plus was advertised as "No Advertisements" and full series? So I subscribed. 2 months later, the criminals decided to add advertisements and still limit the episodes to the last season. So ... why would I pay so much a month to get the exact same thing as free? Stupid Hulu. Crooks, all of them.

Re:Not their fault - oh yes!!

[formfeed]

Oh I'm sure they think it's just as senseless, but if they don't restrict it, then Hollywood won't let them use their IP as cheaply as otherwise

No. Hulu is Hollywood. Fox, NBC, Disney (a.k.a.NewsCorp, Comcast, ABC, MSNBC,..)

They are a resale platform for slightly used content:
1. Let people re-watch recent shows. (Probably to create additional ad-revenue, stop downloads, and competition.)
2. Create an on-line show/movie portal to stop independent offers (Netflix, and Blockbuster in the past).
3. Find new income sources. (Older episodes only on Hulu plus. Media centers, android, or anything convenient only on Hulu plus.)

Not their fault? These are the people responsible for DVD regions. Think Murdoch wants to lose markets? To maximize profits, it is essentially to restrict the usage of media (and information in general) to localized markets. You don't want a movie to hit the regional market before the population is hyped for it and your merchandise is ready. And in order to control the pundit circuit and the news "outlets", you don't want a significant percentage of the population access outside sources.

no problem

[HugoAguilar]

This provider allows faster performance on Hulu Plus service just try this one https://billing.smartydns.com/...

Re:Silly

[cryptizard]

The login does use SSL.

30 Symmetrical FTTH communities Re:Choose an area

[cboslin]

You may not want to move from a home you own, but I'm surprised that people don't consider these types of things when they are moving. During my last move, I determined I wanted better internet than Comcast provides and specifically limited my search for a place to live to somewhere where that was the case. Now I'm enjoying 100mbit symmetric internet for under $40/mo and really enjoying the fact that none of my money goes to those greedy bastards.

As a bonus, when I travel overseas, I can use my own home connection as my VPN service. I can completely sidestep the regional blocking done by the streaming providers.

Intelligent and smart, why on earth were you rated down? Amazing what you can get for less than $50 per month if you move to a FTTH community.

Perhaps some Cable shills with moderation powers....

Everyone can do this if you are looking to move. Look for Fiber To The Home (FTTH) like the less than 30 communities on this map.

The secret to look for is that the Fiber connection offers the same bandwidth upstream as downstream. So there advertised bandwidths are the same, ie. 10Mb/10Mb, 15Mb/15Mb, 20Mb/20Mb, 30Mb/30Mb, 50Mb/50Mb, 100Mb/100Mb, 1000Mb/1000Mb (1TB/1TB), unlike services that call themselves fiber but are not symmetrical and advertise 50Mb/5Mb - - - wrong, 50Mb downstream and 5 Mb upstream tells you they limit, restrict, censor, throttle their bandwidth. Move somewhere else.

With true FTTH, there is no business incentive to throttle, limit, restrict, etc... for bandwidth reasons.

Added bonus, having FTTH adds $5,000 to the price of the home, costs between $1,500 ~ $3,000 to run the fiber link from the switching service to your home and once run, that FIBER link is sold with the home, its property of the home-owner, not any other company, period.

Anything less than this is a wrong, a mistake and prepetuates the failed scarcity myth / increased monthly prices to perpetuity, which is the only reason to restrict bandwidth. To make you think its scarce, when its not, to get customers to pay more.

In the right circles, the Cable company CFOs will admit this scarcity myth fact to investors as a reason investing in cable companies makes more sense. We have a great business model, we can increase our customers rates anytime we want for as much as we want, thus we are always going to be profitable, invest in us

If you are moving, only purchase homes in a community in the map, avoid the others.

Another added plus, the communities with FTTH, are growing small business and jobs with livable wages faster than all other communities in the USA! Small businesses are thriving and actively looking to relocate to these areas for the bandwidth that only true FTTH can provide. Big data demands symmetrical FTTH.

A very smart post, you should be modded up!

Re:And people will just bend over too.

[cboslin]

Man, what country do you live in? Here in the US, you have two choices: The local cable internet monopoly, or nothing. Unless you seriously consider wireless phone data an option.

Not if you move to one of these less than 30 symmetrical Fiber To The Home (FTTH) communities, check out the map!

So when moving, know you have options and move to an area that will give you FTTH internet freedom.

Prosperity and jobs are already flowing to these cities.

Re:This can't be Hulu's decision.

[cboslin]

They will lose many customers over this especially since they didn't even warm their paying customers. We are US military living overseas. Not having access to my prime time shows isn't the end of the world but it was nice to have some things from home. I hate Japan and those shows helped me escape once in a while. Netflix still works with VPN but only has out dates reruns.

I do see a class-action suit in their future due to the way they handled their customers. I am paying for a service I can't use and their tech support wouldn't own up to the change so I didn't cancel right away. I am just glad I found out now so I can cancel. I see a huge downsizing of Hulu employees on the horizon as well unless vpn companies work fast to get some new ip addresses out there!

Another valid post, a valid reaction, for some reason was modded down.

The article referenced mentions that you can purchase your own private IP address and run the VPN tunnel from it, since no one else can register that IP address with Hulu, it will work with a VPN tunnel from your home.

Granted we should not have to do this, way to blow it entertainment industry through Hulu, a huge fail!

Someone mod this one back up, as a valid response to this type of stupid FUD is to cancel the service and take your money elsewhere.

As others have mentioned, a good use of 'the cloud' to constantly change an IP address to obsfucate and anonymize, which of course the advertising industry does not want.