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Netflix Cracks Down On VPN and Proxy "Pirates"
An anonymous reader sends this unfortunate report from TorrentFreak: Due to complicated licensing agreements Netflix is only available in a few dozen countries, all of which have a different content library. Some people bypass these content and access restrictions by using VPNs or other circumvention tools that change their geographical location. This makes it easy for people all around the world to pay for access to the U.S. version of Netflix, for example. The movie studios are not happy with these deviant subscribers as it hurts their licensing agreements. ... Over the past weeks Netflix has started to take action against people who use certain circumvention tools. The Android application started to force Google DNS which now makes it harder to use DNS based location unblockers, and several VPN IP-ranges were targeted as well.
Netflix is obligated to do this to maintain its licensing agreements with the Media Mafia. But it will always be a "cat and mouse" game...
Why is Torrent Freak's logo hot pink?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
How am I going to circumvent my ISP throttling now?
So what's the better answer: Pricing themselves out of some markets, or making less money by pricing for the lowest common denominator? I'm more than happy to take cheaper prices, but I don't invest in media stocks...
I use a smart DNS service in Australia to get my Netflix access. If they do end up blocking it (currently still works fine), I will just go back to pirating my content. I am happy to pay reasonable services a reasonable rate for the content I consume, but be fucked if I will accept being forced to pay for the overpriced poor content supplied locally in Australia.
As a Canadian I know all too well how many people are using services to access American Netflix content that far surpasses the Canadian content in terms quality and quantity (or at least greater quantity of what people want). I expect the majority of my friends that are using these services to access American Netflix will cancel the service outright if they can no longer access it and furthermore, they'll stop suggesting Netflix as a viable option to cable / satellite.
It's not like they're already set up to use free alternatives like bittorrent. What with having a VPN and all.
if they start blocking my provider then I guess I'll be cable and possibly Netflix free and will just torrent away and donate that $$$ to the ones that provide me a real service.
IP terrorist FTW!!!
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I use unblock-us, as suggested by a friend who in turn was directed to it by Netflix staff. The stupid thing is that I would be willing to pay Netflix an extra $5 a month to view [US only] programmes, which would in turn go to Hollywood. Instead I'm giving the money to a completely separate entity. It's another case of "I'm throwing money at my monitor, why won't you take it"
At least Netflix push back - I gave up on LoveFilm entirely because they went the extra mile in preventing Linux access (at least back when I tried it). I am happy to keep paying for Netflix as long as they are happy to keep pushing, I can accept that they're going to have to meet studio demands part-way to keep getting content. As long as somebody's not busy breaking Pipelight, somebody's creating award-winning independent content from the ground up, somebody's doing simultaneous worldwide releases, somebody's trying to support Linux, somebody's open-sourcing parts of their core tech, I'd rather they cut the deals to keep them in the game, at least their chips are big enough to make a difference.
Maybe it's just because I (sometimes) can find more classic films I want on Amazon Instant Video, but I get HDCP errors or "device not supported" and think, I bet it's a noisier debate when the Netflix reps sit down with the various MPAA negotiators.
Love the OTT emotive designation --- so paying for content but not being happy about being given a piss-poor selection for the same cost is piracy now is it?
People willing to go through ridiculous hoops and pay extra money in order to view content they are paying for are pirates?
http://www.engadget.com/2015/0...
Netflix tells us that there's been "no change" in the way it handles VPNs, so you shouldn't have to worry about the company getting tough any time soon. With that said, these blocking errors started showing up in the past few weeks, so it's not clear what would have prompted them.
(stolen from DaBum) I am dyslexia of borg - your ass will be laminated.
I'll just have to continue not giving money to a horrid employer who acts as distributor for products in the strangehold of hypocritical lobbying bastards.
Anyone who wants to watch films on the Internet has three dozen streaming sites to choose from.
So, if the FCC decides to enforce Net Neutrality like Netflix wants... wouldn't that include region blocking like this?
So, they don't want people paying for their service? They would rather see people pirate the movies for free?
The entire media industry is getting more and more ridiculous by the day. Income is income, especially when it comes to the type of people they're targeting (i.e. the tech savvy). If I were a big hollywood studio licensing my works to Netflix, which I am not, I wouldn't care about stupid country restrictions. If there are people out there that want to see my works, and are willing to pay for it in this day in age, that's a great sign.
I only recently read an article about 2014 being the worst collective year for the box office in recent history. Reading the massive amount of comments following the article, the aggregate reasoning for this was insane pricing at movie theatres (including tickets and snacks), and poor quality of movies. Everything is either a remake or a "safe" formulaic film.
To put this entire comment into context, I'm from Australia where we get the raw end of every deal. We often get films months after they get released in the 'States for no reason, we pay more for music, TV and film than most of the world, we have "pay TV" (what Americans would call Cable) that have horrible bundles forcing you into 1 channel you want and 20 channels you don't.
The faster the big studios, MPAA/RIAA, and distributors realise that people always get what they want, and they just need to re-arrange their outdated models so they can get a slice of the pie, the better. I don't see that happening soon though.
You moved your mouse. Please restart Windows for changes to take effect.
That's why God made Bittorrent
WTF? VPNs are not circumvention tools. The people are not changing their geographical location either. Netflix just has a hard time determining their geographical location from their apparent network location. Any number of network configurations have that same effect. Geolocating IP addresses is a flawed concept, and so is region coding. It's called the INTERNET, and I don't care how much the studios don't like it, but they will not erect virtual tollgates. They've done enough damage already. This is exactly why I won't pay another dime for content: They only use the money to keep breaking stuff I care about.
I'm just curious how long it will be before Netflix finds itself caught between the proverbial rock and hard place when a US user files a class action lawsuit against them because they are trying to access their legally acquired content while travelling in a non supported country and can't use their VPN any more...
Considering that their current model is failing and failing badly (movie goer numbers are down IIRC to 90s levels...and percentage of peeps who go to the movies is also WAY down - IIRC 10% now from its high of 50%)....maybe it is time they take another look at their multi-market strategy. Maybe they can make MORE money if they 'sold' the media for LESS. Odd how that works, but even Henry Ford understood this way back in the dark ages of US consumerism. :P
Honestly these dinosaurs still think they are the only game in town. Now peeps have options. Video games, home cinema setups, cable TV, hell theaters that cater to hipsters with only old movie showings. Brave new world.
It's not like everyone is trying to surf the system on purpose. My company disables split tunneling by policy, so all my traffic gets routed through the internal network which goes out via a US-based traffic center.
It seems that's what employees are expected to do these days.
realize we're moving toward one seamless world with friction-free commerce.
There are those who make a way forward, and those who just won't get out of the way.
Route around them with all possible haste.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Roku updated their Netflix app with the forced Google DNS - solutions are available to circumvent the new changes.
http://support.unblock-us.com/...
Having lived on three continents, I found that when you live in Asian socialistic countries, you get the best access to world media content, DVDs are widely available - thanks to the American-first movie release schedule - and Netflix is routinely accessed via VPN. Moreover, cable includes European, Japanese, Australian, Russian, and American channels in the basic package - what shock - and how ironic - moving back to the United States and our media is limited again to a narrow line of English and Spanish movies.
The main reason many people pirate : Its too hard to get things legit ( or non-drm ). Make your service too hard to use, lose customers . Easy formula.
But the only way to change the media industry is by not buying their products simple as that, boycotting. People should stop pirating as well, just ignore the whole fucking industry let it all go to the crapper. Corporations fuck each other as well. The Netflix and Disney deal was a mistake, Netflix payed a lot of $$$ billions to Disney and for what? and same with dreamworks that keeps licensing crappy, half-ass movies, none of their good stuff here in the USA.
Netflix is scum anyway. In Netflix you still can't sort your items under "My List" unless you use the netflix queue sorter which chrome keeps disabling. Netflix refuses to add a "Monthly Release" category to find new movie/tv releases a lot easier, I'm sick of using instantwatcher.com plus searching online for "Netflix streaming Month XX, 20XX" just to see whats coming and leaving.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
"Netflix are heavily resistant to enforcing stricter financial geofiltering controls, as they claim this would present a too high bar to entry from legitimate subscribers. For example, they want people to be able to use various methods of payment (e.g. PayPal) where it is harder to determine where the subscriber is based. They recognize that this may cause illegal subscribers but they (of course) would rather err that way than create barriers to legitimate subscribers to sign up.
We have expressed our deep dissatisfaction with their approach and attitude."
Because their lacklustre IPv6 GeoIP promises me programs I can't watch for about a year now.
About time, lazy morons!
This isn't a pricing issue at all. People are perfectly willing to pay the current pricing and the studios are simply unwilling to sell to them. What I'd like to see (and what I think would be the most profitable across the board) is Netflix North America, Netflix Mexic, Netflix Frace, etc, each available as their own subscription service, defaulting to the user's local content. That way, users subscribe to what they want and if they want content from, say, the US and France, they pay for both subscriptions. If Netflix costs 2x as much in France, so be it, let US subscribers pay the same price French subscribers pay for French content and let French subscribers pay the same price US subscribers pay for US content.
Simply making other regions' content available on a secondary subscription basis means more people will pay for those secondary subscriptions so they can legally access that content. Not doing so means the studios are missing out, since Netflix pays them royalties on a per-subscriber basis. Sure, it means giving up a little bit of control, but control doesn't pay the bills. Cash does, and this would net them more of it.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
When are the movie industry going to open up their eyes and realize that the only way to combat piracy is to offer a service that deliver the same material as torrent sites as easy or easier? If I could pay 50 bucks a month to get legal access to the material found on kickass.so / piratebay I would gladly do so. The industry need to stop shooting themselves in the foot
Funny how "free trade" is not on this level. For instance Australia recently had to take on some of the onerous US copyright laws as part of a "free trade" deal yet the benefit of consumers being able to purchase copyrighted material directly from the USA is not only not happening, but the people who take extra steps to buy such items are labelled as "pirates".
IMHO it's worth avoiding such vendors who have so much contempt for their customers as to insult them in such a way.
I thought I saw a similar article on Slash dot a few months ago about Netflix and VPNs. Hmm.
Apparently the media companies haven't heard of this new-fangled device called a "router". It comes with this exotic, difficult-to-use feature called a "firewall". And it insures that regardless of what DNS servers the application may try to use, it will use my DNS server while on my network. Problem solved.
As for VPNs, it's difficult to block router-based VPN tunnels since there's no trace on the device that a VPN's in use. All it takes is a suitable server to connect to, and I've got a selection available that aren't part of any VPN service since I set them up myself. Setting it up the first time's a bit tricky, but duplicating that first setup and changing a few address numbers to match the new system's pretty simple.
The media companies need to just grow up and accept that the world's moved on with or without them, and that their problems stem not from any overwhelming desire of consumers to pirate content but from their own adamant refusal to accept consumers' money for that content.
Netflix could just tie your account to a geographic region. No matter where you login from you get your country's content. I just think they don't really care and will not do this until they are motivated to. Want a US account then you need a US address. I don't know what the issue is. Seems easier than playing IP Range Wack a Mole.
Dear Netflix,
I don't want to "circumvent" your policies. In general, I really don't need to go to your website. I just get everything I want to watch FOR FREE and in higher video quality.
Your sincerely,
somebody smarter than you suckers
My work's WiFi forces all DNS to the company's DNS.
This is what happens when you let those greedy hollywood bastards too much control. I have friends overseas where they don't have netflix and they indeed use VPN - but what is wrong with that? all they want is to be legal paying customers!!! But oh no - "licensing agreements" this is just BS sugar coating to charge those customers 3 times for the same service. Now my friends will go back to using torrents.... serves you right Hollywood! I wish that piracy continues to thrive to keep you guys humble.
http://time.com/3652040/movies...
I keep seeing these kinds of stories pop up about region blocked dvds, streaming, etc. What is the purpose of it again? Is there some sort of competition in other regions that movie studios are trying to fight for revenue? I honestly don't even understand why it is a 'thing'. Wouldn't you want to sell your product to as many people and as quickly as you can??
How do american studios benefit from region blocking?
Netflix is bs anyway. Every six months or so I check it out. Each time there are gaping holes in their catalog. BT deliver a better experience with broader catalog for lower subscription costs.
>movie goer numbers are down IIRC to 90s levels...and percentage of peeps who go to the movies is also WAY down - IIRC 10% now from its high of 50%
Nothing to do with a recession and lower disposable income, then?
I use http://getfoxyproxy.org for watching Netflix. It's worked for years. Everytime Netflix tries to block it, the admins take counter-measures. So I'm paying someone else to be the "mouse" in the cat-and-mouse game. Worth it to save my time.
It's because the studios sold all possible forms of distribution rights to a "Canadian distributor" who is only physically capable of distributing to movie theatres. They sometimes retained TV rights, sometimes sold them too.
Net result? The studio doesn't get the money you'd like to pay them, and neither does the distributor.
davecb@spamcop.net
when a US user files a class action lawsuit against them because they are trying to access their legally acquired content while travelling in a non supported country
The key words are "non supported". The way it works in a legal sense, it would be like trying to sue a gas station owner because the hose wouldn't stretch to where you parked your car.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I just wish consumers would be able to take advantage of "global markets" the same way the large multinationals can.
They are free to export their jobs to the cheapest source, but thanks to copyright laws and "region restrictions" we (the consumer) cant re-import products where they are cheaper.
Real dvd's (not bootlegs) sell for like a dollar in China and $29 here. Why cant i import them and sell them for $10 and make a tidy profit?
First-sale doctrine says i can, lawsuits says you cant.
It's information like this that inclines me to launch grass roots efforts to boycott various content providers...
If Sony have this opinion that's explicitly and intentionally designed to screw the consumer, I seriously think the consumer should screw them.
Where would Sony be if over a period of 12 months, all SCE, SPE, SOP, etc products ceased to sell.
Blah Blah Blah Blah... there is an obvious and easy solution to this. Just license everything to all Netfilx customers, instead of regionally. The value of the content that is regional probably adds up to less than the cost to police these stupid rules. In fact, there is more than a decent chance that there would be a net savings to Netfilx and their customers, and a net gain to all content providers.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
It is nothing more than a form of censorship and information fascism. In the ancient times we had the burning of books. This is the modern day equivalent.
It is discrimination: much like discriminating someone because of his/her race, gender, socio-economic class etc. Geoblocking discriminates internet users based on the geographical identity of where they're accessing the content from.
Even China is getting onto the geoblocking bandwagon. Some videos on Youku and Tudou cannot be played from outside mainland China. This has to stop.
I subscribe to Netflix. To me, that means that I should be able to use my subscription independently of where I am in the world. I'm often too busy when I'm at home to watch a full movie or to binge-watch a TV season, but I have more time when I am traveling. When I am outside the US, I must use a VPN to a US-based host. If Netflix blocks my access to their service from outside the US, then the value of the subscription drops significantly for me.
Their distribution model is pretty ridiculous. These people are trying like hell to pay for content that they want to watch. It would be easier and cheaper to just pirate the content but they want to pay and the media companies refuse to sell their product. They trick the media companies into being paid for their product and the media companies block them. It's absurd. Ridiculous. Asinine.
So? They moved the goal posts first. Why should we be the ones obligated to abide by agreements the other parties have abrogated their part of?
I'll be quite happy to show respect to copyright when Big Media starts showing respect for it--until I'll fly the jolly roger for as long as I can as often as I can.
The MAFIAA can go suck it for all I care.
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
One that I have fallen off of many times.
But just perhaps, our current 'schema' of (yes scare quotoes 1111!) of ... liscencing intellectual ideas is pretty dumb as hell.
Perhaps as a society we should just do away with this monstrosity of a dinosauriod hemorage inducing system. And U know... I don't know socialism this shit... so artists can get payed fairly based on the merit, popularity, or other measurable, qualitative variables of their work... U know we wouldn't even have to have some gulag of a system, we could have multiple ways of doing this. We could even have privitized funds for this!
But not with our current bullshit way of selling and trading empires of bullshit that does not and will not ever, really, technically, 'belong' to anyone in perpetuity.
Just a thought, oh, and happy New Year slashdot.
Well congratulations Netflix, I was thinking about cancelling netflix and looking for alternatives, because here in Canada, the selection is horrible and we really get screwed over with almost everything when compared to the US. This is the final nail in the coffin for me. There are a lot of Canadian netflix customer that use these techniques to access Us library. How stupid are you netflix? You're going to start loosing your business in Canada. The sad thing is that they can afford to, that's why companie$ like these could give a shit about buisness in Canada.
Exactly! Plenty of people in the world outside the US and Europe would like to be able to legally consume the content. In most situations, the content providers will not provide it to those people, not for ANY price. So some use VPNs, etc to try to get the content that others can get -- and the copyright owners want to shut them out instead of trying to find a way to accept their money. Makes no sense to me.
I live in a non-US country. My family is all in the US. For years, before I left the US, it was my habit to purchase Netflix Gift Subscriptions for family members. I used to do this online, and was no trouble at all.
Now, because I connect from a foreign location, Netflix will not talk to me at all. Even though I am trying to buy a gift for someone in the US using a US$ credit card based at a US address, I have no hope. Neflix simply refuses to do any business with me because I come in from a foreign address.
I find that to be really absurd.
Meh, I rather like the A320. They feel new. Not like pretty much every time I fly on a AA Boeing which feels like it just flew in from 1980. I half expect to find ashtrays in the armrests every time I step on a Boeing (especially in the Economy/Cattle section).
Example: Community is only available on Hulu Plus in the USA, but its available on Swedish Netflix.
Something I saw the other day really cemented just how bullshit this copyright monster has become. I am old, and now granted I am not a huge hockey fan, but I went to watch a video on YouTube of a small clip from a hockey game and it said "This video is property of the NHL and cannot be shown in your country." and I thought "WOW". I am from Canada, the fucking HOME of hockey. WE pretty much BUILT the NHL. Probably something like 50% of the players in the league are Canadian, and yet Canadians can't watch some clips of NHL games on YouTube??? Time to burn it all down.
The deal the studios have with the content providers in Pakistan (i.e the Television stations) gives them exclusive rights to the content for the first 12 months, so they can guarantee an income from their advertisers. If you allow access to the content on the net, at any time you want and without local advertising, the stations in Pakistan have paid for a promise that wasn't realised.
Paying customers for content provided by these studios, and the studios are actively trying to stop them from being able to pay them a price they have generally agreed is fair to let the members of the public able to pay in that currency.
I'm sick of the outdated business practices of media providers. Sure, you can understand the regional libraries for Netflix, et al when the times when things are sold, shown on TV, shown in cinema differ in each region.
And you can understand why that is the case when you are shipping film to cinemas and producing and shipping the film stock is a logistical problem. And to an extent the same with DVD and Blu-Ray.
But we are increasingly moving to a world where we buy or rent digital files rather than physical media. Where even cinemas are going to digital projection and just get files streamed to them.
Other than the time it takes to unwind the backlog, there are no valid reasons for having such vast time difference between when things are released in different regions. And resolving that, there is little (aside from one or two broader regions based on economic activity) reason for price differences between countries.
Making these region locks, on the whole, rather pointless. We need to be clear about this - if a content provider chooses not to provide the content (for very weak reasons), then people attempting to circumvent these arbitrary blocks are not to blame, but the content providers themselves. Stop treating us all so badly.
It is so funny to see these Goliaths scream for access yo markets and for free markets and then attempt to play the cold war russian economic planning game attempting to control content etc... the movie studios / music studios are a joke not to have open licensing without borders people are willing to pay a fair price for the same content not differing prices for differing content and calling people pirates and criminalizing them when they are using a paid service that the movie companies are actually earning money from is an insult to logic and actually shows a total lack of seriousness on their part... no net neutrality and a forced global market that is what should be pulled over their heads as a response to this behaviour.
MS, ALS, Aphasia ? http://globability.org - Me http://einarpetersen.com
Two things I would like to share... 1, I use an ISP that doesn't packet shape, throttle protocols, bandwidth manage, deep packet inspect, blah, blah blah... (yes, there are still a few out there) and quite often I VPN into my own home from other places in the UK, work, family, mobile devices just so I know I have a "clean" internet connection. I wonder how Netflix would identify that as unacceptable? 2, Most torrent clients now have a stream facility, If Netflix make it too difficult for the average user, then Utorrent may just become more popular.... I do agree though, it is a game of cat and mouse because anyone with half an inkling of technology knowledge will circumvent any blocks/ip restrictions/dns in a heartbeat and carry on watching regardless....
Forcing people back to using Torrents and refusing their money.
One more nail in the TV-coffin.
There will be. The fracturing and balkanization of the Internet is inevitable. China has already succeeded, Australia is following. The UK is leading the effort with the EU taking an interested look (the EU was the first to put up fences relating to "inappropriate speech" and trading of nazi memorabilia). In less than 20 years the Internet will have turned into a bunch of closed network delimited by political boundaries and operated by profit-oriented private entities bound by government-mandated guidelines. Nobody will protest because "netizens" will have turned into passive customers all happy and safe in their walled gardens. The revolution is over.
What is the problem with licensing everything for global use? Can someone explain?
The fundamental issue here is that copyright is too powerful. Electronic goods should be a single global market, so the fact that copyright holders are able to use the powers granted by copyrights to slice the market shows that copyright law grants too much.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Only good when studios do it to press DVDs in some godforsaken country where child labour is cheap and available, then import them tariff-free to sell them here for 25 bucks. But me buying a DVD in said godforsaken country where they (legally!) cost a buck is a big nono.
Let alone me watching a movie from abroad. I always thought that in international trade territory protection is a big nono because it "distorts competition". Unless of course the competitor would be the customer. Then the ass should pay through the nose!
Fucking assholes! If any current movies were worth watching I'd torrent them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Free trade has lowered the price of labour. Why shouldn't things be cheaper in a globalized world, or is free trade just for corporations?
Oh yes of course, we just have the shows that the yanks steal then ruin.
dissolving imaginary borders one movie at a time.
Hollyweed (after all, they must be smoking something illegal!) wanting to create an atrificial scarcity of content to keep licensing fees as high as possible, even though most of the movies and TV shows that they have produced in the last 15-20 years are CRAP! Hollyweed and the cable TV industry are trying to fight streaming of content, even though it IS the future of video entertainment. People want to watch what they want, when they want, and without commercials, or being gouged by rediculously high prices. Most people are perfectly willing to pay reasonable prices for the content that they want to watch/listen to/read, especially if it can be made easy and convenient to get. Instead, we have insanely greedy corporations price gouging us for nearly everything, and insanely greedy politicians taxing us to ruin!
Does the U.S. version of Netflix really use a library model, where they strive to keep content available indefinitely? Video streaming services here in Germany continually change the content they are offering, so it's more like a TV with very many channels and random access, and not really a replacement for a collection of your favorite movies and shows.
can't product planes that don't regularly fall out of the sky
"Regularly?"
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Perhaps Netflix could pay everyone millions of dollars to stop doing that?
It is how Netflix dealt with Comcast successfully.
Personally I would prefer on vacation to have my normal home content.
If I go to Japan, I can turn on the tv in the hotel to watch that. But being able to keep watching my own shows would be nice as well. Though there is something to be said for looking at older stuff from a diff country.
As for accessing a diff country on a reg basis. It would be nice. Canada is really limited in a lot of subjects.
Thank god we out here in the rest of the world still have bittorrent.
VZN was the perfect fix for the Verizon buffering issue. Oh, well. Time to cancel Netflix. I wonder if Redbox has the same buffering issue.
I purchased a VPN router and was about to route through that to avoid Netflix throttling by my ISP. I guess this is out now.
The entertainment industry products are such a waste of time... its a good thing they are being blocked. Why spend the 1 1/2 hours watching a movie when you can spend it in code academy learning.
Its funny how things are turning out, I keep telling my nephew to stop wasting his time watching movies and get learning and make some good connections on the net... anything that pushes him to stop vegging in front of the tv is good with me :)
They paid for that anyway. So, the stupid ones really are the local stations.
3 in the last year or so? that's completely unacceptable.
3 in the last year or so? that's completely unacceptable.
What are the three Airbus A-320 crashes in the 'last year or so' that you're referencing?
I'm an aviation geek and I know of one, for which the cause has not yet been determined. 18+ months ago one ran off the runway in the Philippines, but that was pilot error.
You are very naive if you think those who work directly for the executive branch drafted those free trade agreements. All Bill, Barack or Bush did was say "looks good" to agreements that were effectively drafted by the same people over multiple administrations.
When I used to get Netflix though my xbox 360, I used to switch back and forth between Canadian/USA versions of Netflix all the time. Manually editing your DNS takes 2 minutes and that is all you need to do. I was always perplexed by some of the differences in content. In some instances I can understand, but others it seemed some arcane methodology must be in play... The US version had all the Star Trek TV, Canada had just had the movies for example. However when a new season of Top Gear was added, it was available in Canada, but not in the US... I also recall starting to watch "Workaholics", and it vanishing from the library, presumably because they couldn't come to licencing terms...
Media companies are just shooting themselves in the foot making doing the legal thing so difficult. Of course Netflix is not alone in this, just the other day, when trying to watch an SNL clip on YouTube, I get the message about it not being allowed because I live in Canada. Really?
oh, ok.
There was a china one just a couple months ago, then this one, and then one in the last few years I thought.
Also, on every single A-320 flight I've been on, during takeoff and once during landing, there has been a violent, high frequency vibration/shudder throughout the entire plane, right as the plane nose-ups and leaves the runway.
It doesn't worry me, but I do think it's ridiculous that they allowed that past QA. I'm not making this up, and it's not just me, I've recognized it at least 4 times. I use this to fuel my anti-european sentiments.
While I have a serious objection for anyone to be calling paying customers "pirates", this issue is not going away any time soon because of the restrictive contracts imposed by the studios on content delivery providers.
:)
In any case, a VPN is not the best technology to use for bypassing ge-restriction, since VPNs are designed to send all traffic, including audio/video delivery through the VPN tunnel.
A better option is to use a smart DNS proxy, which you can easily build yourself for the cost of a cheap hosted Linux server. This type of solution only proxies API traffic and leaves video delivery to happen across your local connection, with the benefit of your local CDN PoPs.
A private solution such as this, could possibly avoid all of this unpleasantness associated with multiple user accounts observed to be coming from a small IP space (or even single IPs).
DIY clone of Netflix Tunlr/Unblock-Us/UnoTelly on cheap US based VPS
http://blog.belodedenko.me/201...
Having said all that, response from Netflix suggests they are not doing anything to break VPN circumvention:
http://www.engadget.com/2015/0...
-- ab1
P.S. And then there is always IPv6
I never understood why NetFlix used IP address to determine which country's service that they gave you access to. Why don't they use the billing address for the credit card/payment service and then only allow the country to be changed if your billing address changed and then stupid technical fixes implementing Google DNS wouldn't be necessary.
Netflix works amazingly with PureVPN, having no issue at all