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."

Comments

vpn use important when not at home...

[OFnow]

When not at home it's really only sensible to use vpn to use the web. You know: to keep our web access private in a public place. So, Netflix does not want us to use what we paid for --- except at home? What?

Alternatively....

[slashping]

Or they could just move to a non-exclusive licensing model.

Exactly

[presidenteloco]

There is no reason for geoblocking other than greed, and probably misguided, self-defeating greed at that.

There is no legitimate administrative logistics or whatever reason for restricting content access over the Internet to certain locations on Earth.
It is a totally artificial barrier, exactly akin to a highwayman stopping you on the road and demanding the contents of your pockets and your watch.

Don't you think in this day and age that if all people around the world were treated as having the same rights to content, that much more revenue in subscription fees for decently stocked, well-organized, high-performance content services would come in? Of course it would.

We're seeing the death throes of a dying buggywhip business model.