Quickflix Wants Netflix To Drop Australian VPN Users

ashshy writes 200,000 Australian residents reportedly use Netflix today, tunneling their video traffic to the US, UK, and other Netflix markets via VPN connections. A proper Netflix Down Under service isn't expected to launch until 2015. Last week, Aussie video streaming company Quickflix told Netflix to stop this practice, so Australian viewers can return to Quickflix and other local alternatives. But Quickflix CEO Stephen Langsford didn't explain how Netflix could restrict Australian VPN users, beyond the IP geolocating and credit card billing address checks it already runs. Today, ZDNet's Josh Taylor ripped into the absurdity of Quickflix's demands. From the article: "If Netflix cuts those people off, they're going to know that it was at the behest of Foxtel and Quickflix, and would likely boycott those services instead of flocking to them. If nothing else, it would encourage those who have tried to do the right thing by subscribing and paying for content on Netflix to return to copyright infringement."

Comments

Re:International Copyright

[spire3661]

Same reason Blizzard never put servers there. The Australian Telcos have the continent by the balls, no one wants to do business there.

Bad government

[DMJC]

This is all because in the 1990s the government allowed FOXTEL to goto the USA, and buy up exclusive licenses to all new and back catalogues from every major media company in America. They spent billions on it and at the time everyone thought they were overpaying.Turns out they very smartly bought themselves a monopoly position in media, one that has effectively locked out all Australian competitors (All the local media services are shit, from the PSN movies, to Xbox Live, to Quickflix.) and the government hasn't had the balls to call them out and break them up for it.

Quickflix sucks

[GreatDrok]

There are a few similar services starting up down here. I had a look at Quickflix because they have a client for my smartTV and TiVo but all they have to offer are old BBC shows which I already own on DVD and their movie selection is woeful even compared with what we can get on AppleTV. Worse, the compression is too high so what they do have looks terrible. If they had the vast array of stuff that Netflix has then they might have a chance but without it they're going nowhere. I don't subscribe to Netflix as I've taken the approach of buying or renting what I want to see but if it was legitimately offered here I would be interested.