Geoblocking, Licensing, and Piracy Make For Tough Choices at Netflix (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: If Netflix's promise to invigilate users' IP addresses and block VPNs is more than a placatory sop to the lawyers, and if the studios would rather return to fighting piracy by lobbying governments to play whack-a-mole with torrent sites, the streaming company's long-term efforts to abolish or reduce regional licensing blockades could falter this year. This article examines the possible hard choices Netflix must make in appeasing major studios without destroying the user-base that got their attention in the first place. I wonder how long VPN vendors will keep bragging that their services provide worldwide streaming availability, and whether some of them will actually do a decent job of it.

Comments

Re:There are a lot of IP addresses out there

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't block them all.

No need to block anything. Use RTT calculations. Until the VPNs use tachyons, it is still over 90ms from NYC to the EU (and as Netflix has numerous CDNs across the US, a limit, of say, 70 ms would eliminate a lot of VPN usage to access US restricted content from the EU). Within the EU things get a bit more complicated, as do access from Canada (where all the major cities are close to the US proper), but it would be an easy first step that Netflix could do today and show they are trying.

Re: Netflix? Try the studios instead

[khchung]

There is no reason that Netflix can't sell their services in other markets

Except the part where Netflix didn't want to pay for global distribution rights (and do the necessary localization such as subtitles, for every regions they sell to) from the studios?

If Netflix bought and paid for only US distribution rights, and then take subscriptions around the world and stream the movie worldwide, then the studios would have a hard time finding distributors in, say, Asia. Who are willing to invest in the effort to do the localization and when a portion of the market had already seen the movie directly from US Netflix?

Why else would the studios bother to pressure Netflix, which is basically their reseller?

If, instead, we are talking about Nike shoes, and the US distributor take direct orders from, say, Japan, then that distributor would be getting pressure from Nike pretty soon to stop. Same thing.