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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.
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MPAA/RIAA, and distributors realise that people always get what they want, and they just need to re-arrange their outdated models so they can get a slice of the pie, the better.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.
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Geo-blocking isn't actually illegal, it just isn't illegal to bypass it so they most definitely can legally stop us. They are free to implement various measures to prevent it and enforce it, we just won't be in any legal trouble for doing our best to get around it.
In the purist sense of 'net neutrality' it would not. Content licensing is not packet prioritizing. However unappealing and self-defeating it may be, region licensing is 100% legit legally and unrelated to net neutrality.
Yeah, I understand that. What I don't understand is why the big media conglomerates put such baffling restrictions into their licenses in the first place. Is it to comply with licensing agreements that they made? Is it truly idiotic licensing all the way down?
The issue is the existing licenses (with service providers with a lot more subscribers, and therefore able to pay more for licensing) will demand exclusivity.
If I'm a TV provider in the uk, I don't want Netflix picking and choosing the content they want, and then undercutting me. I want to lock access to game of thrones down so they can only get it via me.
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."
It probably wont work anyhow.
What you will find out is that the credit cards have coded the country of issue into the number.
I once had XM radio US refuse to accept my Canadian mastercard when i was living in the US (obviously an attempt to enforce the higher prices in Canada policy).
The thing is, since i used a US address how did XM know it was a Canadian card?
I live in Canada (near the border), I have P.O. Box on the U.S. side and I have a bank account in a U.S. bank. I had no trouble opening it, and I use it to pay for many purchases I make from the U.S. (I can often get much better travel deals through sites like Priceline when I use a credit card with a U.S. billing address.)
So, I don't know what difficulty you're alluding to.
Interesting statement considering that U.S. banks don't allow accounts to be set up with PO Box addresses.
The credit card number does encode the issuing bank, and that determines the currency that the card works in. If I was in country X with a credit card from country Y, I certainly would not use that card to make regular, recurring purchases in country X. Every such transaction would be treated as a foreign transaction, with accompanying transaction and exchange fees.
The Big Media Conglomerates buy and sell the distribution rights for individual properties between each other, they will often sell foreign right for a film to a different company, and as a part of that they give up the right to sell the film in that territory.
The important thing to understand is that "studios" do not own the rights to distribute the shows they make, these are owned by distributors. Many distributors are owned by studios, and many other distributors don't make movies or TV shows at all, they just buy independent films and market them.
Distributors do not generally own the titles they sell outright. They usually only own the rights for a certain territory -- a standard example is a film that is funded by two different studios (many are), with one studio distributing the film in the US, and the other, in exchange for fronting some of the budget, getting the right to distribute the film in foreign territories. Netflix's own shows are perfect examples of this -- "Orange is the New Black" is produced by them, and they distribute it in the US, but they sell the foreign rights to HBO and Sony because they know they'll make more money in the UK and France on HBO than they would if they streamed it. As a condition of taking this deal, HBO required Netflix to not compete with them in their territory.
And this is only "big" products -- most of the true independent films you see are produced by someone with cash up front, and then the rights are sold piecemeal at film markets. The rights to Japan go to company X, the rights to Germany go to company Y. This is much more efficient because each company can then decide exactly how the property should be marketed, if it is appropriate for theaters, or pay TV, or cable, what the posters should look like, will the stars matter, are there cultural factors that make the film/TV show particularly attractive (or not). All of these decisions are decided on a country by country basis, and the only way a distributor in a market can "own" the rights is by keeping other distributors from competing with the same film. That's what the right is.
It's not stupid or evil -- the problem is people think "studios" "own" "movies", and they completely control how they're exploited commercially, and it's not true at all. It never worked that way, the business has always been about licensing of libraries of titles.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
What the general public needs to do is stop watching the crap they produce and just say no, your restrictions are now undesirable, I will do something else for entertainment. As long as there is demand, even if it is in illegitimate forms, the conglomerates wield the power. It is their content after all.
There is so much content out their now, it doesn't have the value it once did. And they know that, that's the problem, it's why they're desperate to extend copyrights and maintain control, they want us to be fooled into thinking that's the only type of media available and that releasing a new version of a story that has been told 10 times before is the only way you should want to watch it.
Learn a different language or two, it can occupy you for a few years at a time and you can have fun trying to understand content in different languages and due to your limited understanding watch it many more times than when you half listen to it in your native tongue. Even a silly children's story about an animal that goes here and there and does this and that will occupy your time if you try learn a different language. That's all that entertainment is, getting you through the boredom of life since you're not starving every day.
Unless you're super well off you don't have enough money to just give it away to people much richer than you. If you're an idiot in debt, you actually don't have any money at all, so what the hell are you doing spending it? You're robbing future generations. Consume consume, eventually there will be nothing left. The idea that an economy can just grow and grow is ridiculous, and it's growth is at the expense of something else. Matter is finite, all wealth is based on matter, even cultural wealth. The marketers want you to think you need more than you have, they instil lust. They want you to throw away what you have and waste. And the usurers are laughing all the way to the bank while they enslave you in bondage.
Stupid fucks.