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Netflix's Doomed Battle Against VPNs Begins (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Australian unblocking service uFlix recently announced that Netflix has begun implementing its plans to block users who take advantage of web proxies and VPNs to get around location restrictions on content. Shortly afterward, the service rolled out a fix to restore service, despite Netflix's efforts. The article makes the case that Netflix is probably just fine with this: "Netflix, ultimately, is caught between a rock and a hard place. The company has gone on record many times criticizing the way content licensing deals are negotiated globally. Of course, Netflix would love to be able offer a consistent library of content around the world. But it also has to stay on-side with those who hold the rights to the content, otherwise they may threaten to pull shows and movies altogether. The result is that Netflix is going through the motions of blocking VPNs, even though it understand perfectly well that these measures are doomed to fail."
The current crop of media tycoons are too old to figure that out. They are stuck in a prior generation's way of managing content, and they are doing everything they can to keep the rest of the world trapped in it too, to their own detriment.
Eventually they will die off and be replaced by a new crop of tycoons who, though just as evil, have a better understanding of how data moves and breathes, and so they will get on board with a more reasonable (and ultimately more profitable) plan. Of course...by the time they get that worked out, THAT paradigm will be technologically outdated, so people will be having this exact same conversation.
Policy always lags a decade or two behind tech.
This type of VPN usage isn’t risky right now. You’re thinking of downloading bad stuff over VPN and trying to prevent nastygrams from your ISP. In that case, you’ve got a copyright owner or a LEO with subpoena power who can follow the paper trail back to you with minimal effort.
This is people paying for VPN’s for paid Netflix subs to stream content that’s not normally available in their market.
Is there law breaking going on? Probably, but thus far it’s not something that content providers have made the effort to send copyright cease & desist or whatever the local equivalent of DMCA letters for this type of stuff to end users. As for the VPN providers (where the money’s going), they’re arguably doing nothing wrong. They’re just moving packets from A to B, with ‘B’ being a frequently moving target, for Reasons.
Sure there’s a paper trail, things could get messy some day, but for the time being, paying for this service on your own credit card and accessing Netflix is a very low risk activity.
The VPN services getting paid have all kind$ of incentive$ to make sure they keep working with Netflix. It’s whack-a-mole with well funded & highly motivated moles. Not likely that any blocks will suceed for very long.
I’ve little doubt some law or top-secret treaty will attempt to add legal clout to close the loophole; but for now it’s not something that’s likely to get in you trouble. Enjoy it while it lasts...
I'm afraid of what the new crop of tycoons will do to manage content. I'm imagining the following nightmare scenario:
Mr. McMoneypants: I know there are people out there watching my intellectual property for free and it frosts my balls!
Prof. Techflunky: You know, if we monitored everything everyone watched then we could send them a small bill every-time they enjoyed your IP. We could make the fee small enough for them to afford it, but have a huge penalty if they refused.
Mr. McMoneypants: Is that even possible?
Prof. Techflunky: It's all just engineering. The first step is to eliminate anonymity from the internet. Since this will lessen hacking and terrorism I'm sure we can get the necessary government backing.
Mr. McMoneypants: Holy Christmas! As it just so happens I own a few politicians! Here's a billions dollars! Put together a team!
Prof. Techflunky: As you wish master.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.