After Netflix Crackdown On Border-Hopping, Canadians Ready To Return To Piracy (www.cbc.ca)

An anonymous reader shares an article on CBCNews: Many Canadians are enraged by Netflix's declared war on cross-border watchers, who skirt the company's rules by sneaking across virtual borders to stream Netflix shows and movies restricted to other countries. Sometimes it's hard to be satisfied with Netflix Canada's library when our American neighbours have, it's estimated, access to almost double the content. But this big and bold clampdown may backfire -- at least in Canada. Turns out, Canadians are big pirates at heart. Apparently, we feel somewhat entitled to download illegal content when we don't have cheap and easy access. Instead of shelling out $10 for a Netflix subscription, some people now may opt to pay nothing at all to get what they want.

Comments

The Real Problem

[cyriustek]

The Netflix offering in New Zealand is abysmal as well. As such, many people happily used services like Unotelly and others to circumvent the geo-blocking. As a matter of fact, one ISP (Orcon) actually offered a service to help its users to bypass geoblocking. However, this was taken away due to legal threats from SkyTV and cable operators.

Services like DirecTV, SkyTV, Xfinity, and others are to blame for perpetuating an antiquated system of content rights. They have a lot to lose from globally available services because they are the middle men that need to be cut out, resulting in lower prices for the consumers and/or higher profit for the content creators.

In the meantime, I guess it is back to downloading for New Zealand as well. It is a shame that content creators will lose due to the "middle men."

Cord cutting != piracy - I call BS on this!

[jenningsthecat]

TFS echoes TFA, which says the following:

If Netflix continues its crackdown, we're likely to see more Canadians turning to piracy. That's apparently what Canadians do when we don't have easy access to cheap content. Market research analyst, Brahm Eiley calls it our "dirty little secret." He says statistics on piracy are scant but that, according to his findings, Canadians are bigger cord cutters than Americans. On the surface that seems odd because Americans have access to many more low-cost streaming services such as Amazon, HBO and Hulu. However, we find other ways to get what we desire — such as downloading unauthorized films and TV series. "Canadians are kind of more comfortable going out and finding content in whatever creative way they want," explains Eiley, president of the Toronto-based market research company, Convergence Consulting Group.

TFA talks about piracy, but relies entirely on a linked article to support its claims. The linked article is primarily about cord-cutting, but contains a little blurb titled "Canadian Pirates". That weaselly little blurb links to a 'study' that supposedly supports its contention - but the 'study' mentions NOTHING about downloading, (illegal or otherwise), nor does it mention piracy. Shitty, shoddy journalism, a tempest in a teapot, and total BS. As a Canadian, I expect better from the CBC.