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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."
It's dupe-l-licious!
Well, OK, this "story" has an additional linky to engadget...
Netflix really does have to do this, their business requires the licenses and cooperation of the Media Mafia, who could snuff them out if they chose. There would be lawsuits, but Netflix would be essentially over.
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?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Excellent. Today, I think I'll learn to play the piano, master a few vintage Atari arcade games and hit on Andie MacDowell.
I think it was stupid for people to go out of their way to pay for 2 services (VPN/Proxy and Netflix), one of which views them as pirates.
If you're gonna be viewed as a pirate by Netflix, save yourself the trouble and pirate the content right away at no cost. Because if you circumvent for whatever reason the restrictions and pay you're still considered a pirate by Netflix and the MPAA. In this case being honest doesn't pay.
I could be wrong, but I suspect Netflix is completely fine with you VPN'ing your way to more content -- it's the movie studios that aren't ok with it. More paying customers is a Good Thing for Netflix.
Apparently, movie studios have no interest in more paying customers.
Netflix doesn't have a choice here; they get most of their content from licensing deals and likely were pressured into this by those providers.
The best thing you could do is support netflix and watch their original programming, so they can make more and cut out the established Big Content providers. (Until Netflix becomes one and we move on to the next new thing.)
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
To coordinate and block duplicate stories.
Its like they don't even talk to each other.
"Hey do you think this is a good idea for the front page?"... "Nah it was submitted yesterday..."
And in fact it was submitted to /r/technology on reddit like a week ago... Slashdot has become the last piece in the chain for news - which is sad because it puts it below Facebook.
Often they are used to bypass the decidedly not net-neutral treatment of Netflix by your ISP.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
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?
Dupe!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Yeah, their strategy seems pretty lousy. Basically everyone I know is totally fine paying reasonable fees for convenient access to content -- but will of course pirate material if it's not available.
In Denmark it's not illegal to bypass country restrictions. So if you pay for Netflix and uses VPN / SmartDNS / What ever then it's not against the law.
Which doesn't mean Netflix will allow VPN in Denmark. Netflix's actions almost certainly have little to do with "law" and everything to do with being leaned on bu the Media Mafia.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
They do, but you aren't their paying customer, the entity which buys the distribution license in your country is their paying customer. If you can access an American service to view the content, why would anyone other than an American business buy the distribution license?
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.
to the media by making it easy to browse through, search, access, and stream.
And they're paying regular price.
We live in a very strange world when "piracy" has gone from "armed crews of criminal specialists seizing tonnage shipments of goods on the high seas with cannon and sword" to "a regular schmo paying the regular price to use a regular product in the regular way in his regular living room."
Hard to believe that the word still retains any of its negative connotation at all.
"Piracy" these days sounds an awful lot like "tuesday afternoon nothing-in-particular with tea."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
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.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
So the American license is the global license. But they don't give global licenses, because they can extract money selling the exact same thing 200 times to 200 different people. But reality wins. If you don't allow global access under the more expensive US license, then you'll have pirates, as the streaming options in most other places are inferior.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
Learn to love Alaska