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Netflix Begins Blocking Users Who Bypass Region Locks
An anonymous reader writes with reports that Netflix may be shutting out international VPN users. "Netflix can only stream the videos that studios make available in a given country, which has led to a booming business in workarounds (such as proxies and virtual private networks) that let you see the company's catalogs in other nations. Heck, one New Zealand internet provider practically built a service around it. However, you might not get to count on that unofficial solution for much longer. VPN operators claim to TorrentFreak that Netflix recently started blocking some users who use these technological loopholes to watch videos that would normally be verboten. The effort isn't widespread and mostly appears to focus on connections with many simultaneous Netflix sign-ins (that is, they're obviously being used for circumvention), but it's a surprise to viewers who were used to having unfettered access."
I don't know much about why there are such restrictions, do they charge different amounts in different countries? Shouldn't it all be pretty much the same, money-wise? Is it an issue of censorship based on the particular country's politics?
It's all about the licenses. Most of the time a TV station with deep pockets buys the rights for a region for a given timeframe from the producers. And they wouldn't be too happy if you could binge watch a whole season on Netflix before they had time to show all the episodes on TV.
So unless Netflix outbids every TV station for the content rights all the time they will always have somebody crying for regional blocks.
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how about because they AREN'T pirates. It is perfectly legal to bypass geo-blocking in many countries. e.g. Australia. Why do we do it, because the local services are shit and even with the cost of the VPN + Netflix it is still cheaper than the shit local services.
From Netflix USA you are considered a pirate.
Understand that from their perspective paying for content is not enough, you have to respect the restrictions of the service.
Right, because there aren't other considerations in play. I mean the actors, composers, producers, graphics designers, musicians, etc. involved in the production of a movie all have a uniform contract that discusses world wide steaming over the Internet. It isn't like there is a shitload of legal legwork involved in releasing movies for streaming.
They're mostly work for hire or to receive a percentage of the gross (if they're smart) or the net (if they're stupid), you don't renegotiate those contracts per country. That would be extremely fooling since the movie is already made, you'd give everyone involved the chance to ask any price they want. The problem at least in the early days was that many movies and series were sold with exclusive distribution rights often down to the national level due to the traditional broadcasting networks. That means Netflix can't go to one company and ask for rights, they have to sub-licenses from many different entities. For newer material this is changing, typically the production company keeps the online streaming rights and only promise to not exercise them while it airs. Of course they still want to gouge Netflix as much as they can, but it's not the same fractured landscape of rights as it used to be.
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More likely, Sky will buy the rights, then not show it. They buy rights for things they aren't intending to show in order to lock others out, and drive subscriptions. You can't pay $10 a month to stream stuff. You have to pay a full Sky subscription (we'll call it $100) to get access to their streaming service, and it's not even a very good one.
Shit like that is why everyone runs to VPNs.
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