New Zealand ISP's Anti-Geoblocking Service Makes Waves

angry tapir writes New Zealanders and Australians are often blocked from using cheap streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu and instead at the mercy of local content monopolies for popular shows such as Game of Thrones. However, a New Zealand ISP, Slingshot, has caused a stir by making a previously opt-in service called 'Global Mode' a default for its customers. The new service means that people in NZ don't need to bother with VPNs or setting up proxies if they want to sign up to Netflix — they can just visit the site. The service has also caused a stir in Australia where the high price for digital goods, such as movies from the iTunes store, is a constant source of irritation for consumers.

Comments

Please do not use this facility

[mtthwbrnd]

it is the same as stealing money from old women at knifepoint.

Re:Please do not use this facility

[Chrisq]

it is the same as stealing money from old women at knifepoint.

You mean you are likely to be pepper sprayed then bludgeoned with a handbag?

Not Australian, but I support this!

[XnavxeMiyyep]

The Internet should be global.

Re:Not Australian, but I support this!

[slashmydots]

It is. What the problem is is Hollywood and their media licensing rules. They're the ones that decided that streaming to an additional country costs more. Netflix didn't decide that all on their own for no reason.

Needed to stop anyway

[timrod]

Geo-blocking is a practice that needs to stop anyway, because it makes no sense. Take Steam as an example.

Up until two or three years ago, there were a good number of people who used proxies to buy content not from their region on Steam - this was particularly important for Germans (who are served the "low violence" version of games by default) and Australians/New Zealanders (who were far overcharged compared to the US/UK and could use a proxy to buy stuff from the US Steam store cheaper than they could in Aus/NZ). There was one problem with this system, though. Most publishers sold games on Steam's Russian store for far cheaper than they did on the US or UK stores - a friend of mine bought a 4-pack of copies of Dead Island (back when that was a new-ish game and the 4-pack was going for upwards of $60 on the US store) from Russia for like $20.

Then, Valve started cracking down on cross-region purchases, making it so that you could still add games from other regions but could not actually play them until your IP was detected as being in one of those regions. The problem was that it was applied so that more expensive regions had fewer restrictions - US-bought games can be played anywhere, as can AUS/NZ ones, but games purchased from Russia or a few other regions can't be played outside of those specific regions. This means that if you're from the US and go on vacation in Russia, you can play Counter-Strike GO while in Russia, but if you're Russian and go on vacation to the US you can't play CS:GO while in the US.

It's a ridiculous double-standard, and a counter to geo-blocking would remove a lot of it.

Re:Needed to stop anyway

[kav2k]

A couple of points.

First, those restrictions have recently been kicked up a notch in ridiculousness. Some publishers now disallow gift copies in those "cheaper" regions - presumably, to stop such cross-region trading, but you can't even gift the game to someone within the region.

Second, it's important to remember that region restrictions are entirely up to the publisher. As far as I can tell, Steam more or less mandates cheaper prices for Russian region, but adding restrictions is entirely publisher's decision. For instance, no digital copy of a Valve game was ever subject to those restrictions (retail is another matter though). Most indies don't opt for regional versions.

Re:Needed to stop anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no "presence" in other countries in most cases. It's certainly not a requirement. Most of the "indie" games on steam have no "presence" in say Australia, and yet the price in Australia is not [US Price] * ($AU/$US) in AUD or just [US Price] in USD.

It has nothing to do with "costs to maintaining and presence in another country". It is solely due to "that's what Xians are willing to pay for the game", which unsurprisingly pisses people off since most people don't like being charged more than someone else for no reason other than the seller thinks they are dumb enough to pay more.

Re:Tits and swords

[fey000]

You're not missing anything if you don't see GoT. It's just tits and swords.

Paraphrase: You're not missing anything interesting. It's just the most awesome thing in the world and the fourth most awesome thing in the world. All the time.

Re:Will local rights holders sue?

[Sique]

Geo-locking content has been declared illegal in New Zealand, thus the rights holders don't have any stand to sue.

Re:Will local rights holders sue?

[fustakrakich]

Then it will be back to bittorrent. It's best for all to tear down the walls.