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Netflix CEO Says Blocking Proxy Services Is Maturation of Internet TV (mobilesyrup.com)
An anonymous reader writes: During a recent round table discussion, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings commented on the company's controversial move to begin blocking the use of proxy VPN/DNS services. "We have the obligation to respect the content rights that we buy; it's just a simple fairness thing. Someone else has paid for the rights in Germany, so we should respect that, just as we would expect the same in return," he said. "The basic thing is if we license a movie here [the U.S.], and then another network licenses it in Germany, then we don't have the rights to display it in Germany. That's why we have to enforce those VPN rules, just like Amazon Prime Instant Video and others do as well. Think of it as the maturation of Internet TV."
With any new technology, stuff is relatively free. People who make stuff are left alone to make it, and the stuff that is made is shared. Popular work is encouraged, and less popular work continues on a hobby basis. But then someone rich realises that they're not getting even richer by sticking their nose into this new technology. So they waltz in and say, "Hey, this is disrupting the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed - that lifestyle involving my collecting money from people without actually DOING any further work." And for a while people point and laugh and say, "Who is this old man, coming into our playground and wagging his finger and telling us what to do?"
But this old man has money. And money buys two things: it buys land, and it buys ears. You can buy a lot of the playground, sure, but you can't scare everyone off it, otherwise your playground was useless. So, you buy ears. You convince people who were playing happily that they should be ok with playing differently - in particular, playing in such a way that the old man gets a cut each time you play a game. It's your moral duty. Go on, pay the man.
And then the playground is mature.
"Why does my geographical location determine whether or not I'm allowed to access the content I paid for?"
Because the powers that be want to enclose and DRM the internet. They know most people are stupid. Movie studies have seen what video game companies and apple has done for software and games. They want to seal the entire internet in encrypted drm laden bs. I expect to see videogames increasingly go always online and exe's and game files go fully encyrpted/sandboxed in the future. Similar things will most likely happen to video. They are never going to give up trying to enclose the internet.
Reed Hastings is trying to say that Netflix can only do business by playing by the rules that the TV networks and content producers write. Those groups want to maximize their profit, and so does Reed. If they refuse to do business with Netflix without geographically-limited licensing, Netflix can either say goodbye to customers or agree to do it.
As the head of a public company, Reed doesn't have a choice. I would at least hope that Netflix itself only licenses on a global basis and doesn't engage in geographic limitations.
The wheel it turns, around and around, with an ancient rumbling sound.
There's nothing illegal about geoblockimg, but neither is ther anything illegal about our working around it. And if they try too hard at making geoblockimg stick, we will just torrent, and nobody gets paid.
Sadly, most of these companies have realized that an Indian viewer will pay a fraction of what a US viewer will pay and that a European viewer will pay even more than the US viewer. That's why the rights are not licensed worldwide.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
In other words, you're working hard on making it as irrelevant as old school TV has become, and for the same reason?
*sigh*
Back to torrents, folks, 'til they get it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
i think the real maturation of internet tv is going to come when the exclusive content agreements stop. i thought music was on the way to getting this right, but...its not. you cant quite get everything on one music service, and video is way behind music in getting it right.
hell, i pay the NHL a few bucks a month for gamecenter live, but my local team is blacked out, and national games are blacked out. for the games i *CAN* watch, there are no commercials or half-time commentary or anything. its weird for a game to go to commercial, the tv to go silent, and the screen to say "we will be right back" and worse, theres NO option to pay a few more bucks a month to get my local games, or to get the national events, and i dont like commercials, but its a weird, weird way to watch anything on tv when there is a 2 minute or 15 minute silent intermission.
hell, id pay twice what what i do now to stream it so that i could watch what satellite/cable users can subscribe to, but thats not a thing. its bizarre.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
Did you bother reading the article? Netflix has bought the rights to display certain content in the USA. Other companies have bought the rights for other locations. If Netflix wants to buy world-wide rights, they probably can, but they will pay a LOT more $$$ for it, and they will pass that cost along to you, the consumer.
You know, it sort of made sense in the pre-internet days where you had only terrestrial broadcast and cable (and then eventually satellite). There, you had people with infrastructure, etc. in a country and you licensed your content to those entities to broadcast. Now it is a holdover. But, those broadcast entities still exist. They haven't been driven out of business yet. So they still license the content. And they complain like crazy if a streaming service based in another country is allowing that same content to be shown in "their" area (where their physical broadcasts can be seen). They say, "you'll put us out of business as nobody will pay us for our connections or broadcasts if you show the content we licensed over the internet". To which I say - Exactly.
It is time for channel based content to go. Who cares what channel or network the content they want to watch is on or even from? They just want to watch say Big Bang Theory or Orange is the New Black or whatever. It no longer needs to be on at a "time" on a "channel". But the old way of distribution is still pretty well entrenched at least for a little while longer.
Fairly sure you can use VPN. Just that you will still see just the stuff you see at home.
Nope. They started blocking Private Internet Access. My Netflix billing address was in the US and the VPN servers I used were in the US. They blocked PIA so I cancelled Netflix. Now I one-stop-shop at The Piratebay while maintaining some privacy from my ISP and the websites I visit.
Sadly, most of these companies have realized that an Indian viewer will pay a fraction of what a US viewer will pay and that a European viewer will pay even more than the US viewer. That's why the rights are not licensed worldwide.
The funny thing is that the European viewer, who's willing to pay the most, can only access a small portion of the available content. A possible solution could be that you can only sign up in the country where you live, and charge different rates based upon that, but still let you watch the entire collection.
What is the it in this context, though?
Let's say you're a German who signed up for Netflix while you were traveling in the U.S. - because you wanted something better to watch in Hotels than the public channels and HBO - and are currently in France.
Is it...
A. "Netflix's catalog from the market in which I currently find myself"? You believe you're entitled to French content only.
B. "Netflix's catalog from the market from which I signed up"? You believe you're entitled to US content only.
C. "Netflix's catalog from the market from which I pay"? You believe you're entitled to German content only.
D. "Netflix's entire catalog from whichever market I damn well please"? You believe you're entitled German, French, USA, UK, Belgian, Chinese, Swahili, Antarctican, etc. content.
Netflix's current stance is that it is option A. Netflix's stance should probably be option C instead. Option B is a weird one, but technically possible by locking content down when the account is created, requiring a minimum amount of time to be pass before it can be modified in case of relocation.
A lot of people however feel that it's option D. They paid 'for Netflix' and believe that means the entire catalog. They are delusional.
It pains me to have to point this out, but it seems as if the weekend anti-copyright knee-jerk brigade is out in force today. What Hastings was roughly saying appeared far from shocking or outrage-provoking.
Obviously, if they don't want to be in breach of contract Netflix are legally obligated to abide by the covenants of whatever agreement(s) they've entered into with content owners. He's merely saying this to appear to do what they expect his company to prevent, this in order to keep securing more licenses for their content; and further he adds that he's very aware of what customers want, only it's going to take time to reach a universal licensing model. Except for programs they fund themselves, one would assume.
I mean, who are we kidding here? Obviously, with them using around 37% of the entire Internet's bandwidth as of 2015 stats, one would think that Netflix is keenly aware that it's just a pointless exercise of whack-a-mole, but the balding pointy-headed head of the licensing department at 19thCenturyFax might not quite be as savvy with technology, and could actually believe that the VPNing can be stopped. (in reality, none of them are dumb enough to assume something so silly, but their point simply validates the low-hanging fruit theory to get maximal return for a small investment of time and resources.)
If people are serious about using VPNs, then they'll have to put in a bit of extra effort and spend a little more to get a reputable provider that will not fall victim to their pruning of the cheap or free VPN services. Again, nothing terribly earth-shattering here. One could therefore remark that it would seem reasonable to save the indignant tone for actually important things.
I find it amusing that big business want to buy cheap labor from overseas on H1B visas, but crack the shits when consumers try to do the same thing with product and services.