Slashdot Mirror
More Unblocking Companies Give Up Their Fight Against Netflix (techspot.com)
Earlier this year, Netflix announced it was going to block the VPN services that were circumventing the streaming service's geoblocking technology, and it seems in the months since many of the top VPN players have given up on finding ways to workaround Netflix's block tech. From a report on TechSpot (condensed): Australian company uFlix discovered that some of its users could no longer access Netflix. It said that a fix was coming soon, but, uFlix announced recently in a recent blog post that it has given up the fight. "As of today we are going to stop supporting Netflix as an unblocked channel. Unfortunately every time we set up a new network or find a workaround it is getting blocked within hours." Uflix isn't the only service to throw in the towel -- most of the other unblockers have quietly decided to stop trying to evade Netflix's geoblocks, as more customers complain they can no longer watch the streaming site. Popular VPN TorGuard had assured customers that the crackdown wouldn't affect them. But there is no mention of Netflix on TorGuard's website, and its shared Netflix server was taken offline four months ago.
netflix?
Netflix subscriber count suddenly drops for no apparent reason...
Contact Netflix and tell them you are cancelling your subscription due to this action on their part. That's really the only leverage you have over them. It is not in the customer's interest that they are doing this.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Now I get the content for free and I'll always have it. You blew it Netflix.
As a bonus, the VPN does a great job of neutering threats.
I pay Netflix because I hate the media companies. Netflix will win.
Netflix is not the enemy. The rent-seeking copyright holders are; so hit them where it hurts.
If they don't want my money.. the Torrents doth provide.
..don't panic
for the same reason they cannot win this fight in the end, if governments and ISPs decide there should not be online anonymity, that fight cannot be won either, out side some extreme 0.001% cases. So be careful how much of the camel's nose you let into the tent.
This is why I built my own library off line of shows I like to watch. Sure it's not current TV but to me it's always available as long as a light bulb works in the house. No pesky region issues either.
many of the top VPN players have given up on finding ways to Netflix's block tech.
Maybe they could try to accidentally Netflix's block tech.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
So I'm six quid up a month again, times that by how many others think well fuck this then if I can't watch what I want for no better reason than they don't want me to.
I wonder how Netflix is doing this. More importantly, I hope they're not sharing this technology with countries like Iran or China.
JFC.
So next year we'll be seeing the stats that piracy is increasing again since hollywood and so on decided that region locking was a really good idea. I know of quite a few people here in Canada who've simply cancelled their netflix subs, kept the VPN and now pirate everything like they did a few years ago.
Om, nomnomnom...
I don't run into this problem since I buy the movies, TV, and music I like on physical media and rip it to digital. While people are throwing money away for overly compressed, limited content I just kick back and enjoy media in its original presentation quality. Have fun watching your Adam Sandler movies though.
They really ought to have an international ban on geoblocking/locking. It's just a pain for everybody involved.
One thing that annoyed me last summer was when I went on vacation. I had my iPad and figured I'd watch a movie at the hotel at night. Of course I used a VPN, but selected a server in Canada. Netflix refused to play because it looked like I was using a VPN. Well, yeah, I was. But I'm a Canadian subscriber and I was using a server based in Canada. I wish their blocking feature was smarter.
I never ever cared a damp piece of shit for you. I still don't, and seeing that, I'm glad I don't.
As far as I'm concerned, you, your "content" overlords (aka customers), your end-users (aka warez) and your unblocking services may as well go all broke at once.
To start running OpenVPN and letting anyone they know personally abroad connect in and view the content they want. My connection should be able to handle 2 or 3 more regular HD Netflix streams in and out. They block my IP? Big deal, I can convince the ISP's DHCP server to assign me a new one. Once they've blocked enough dynamic residential IPs to piss everyone off, they'll most likely just give up.
It's easy to play whack-a-mole when there are only a handful of very visible moles. Put millions of them underground and see how much effort the rent-seekers are willing to spend on blocking.
If they want my money, they're welcome to provide a reasonably-priced option, like netflix was before they cracked down on the various unblockers. Until then, I'm back to pirating everything but music. Tidal offers affordable streaming/purchasing without geoblocking nonsense
I know people here in Canada who use a vpn to get around the blocks netflix uses because American Netflix has more choices than here... when the subject came up just a few weeks ago about something like this, he has, in about as many words, plainly admitted that he will torrent the shows he watches if they ever make it otherwise impossible for him to watch.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...where people will go when they cannot access their desired content through approved channels.
Email the pricks still abusing regions as a form of control.
Tell them, in no uncertain terms, you will pirate their shows instead since there is now no legally accessible form to view it.
Be sure to use an e-mail anonymity tool or service, since they will try to make examples of anyone. Even people that aren't their clients. (Like that time one indie music group was DMCA'd off Youtube for his own content used on TV.)
Netflix aren't the ones to blame. The abusive publishing and managerial side is the problem.
Alternatively some crappy petition saying they will lose custom if they don't stop it. (No mentions of piracy, just sort of implied without admitting)
Geo-blocking movies is like geo-blocking automobiles, and it makes about as much sense. Can you imagine a car dealer or rental agency telling you "sorry, your car won't work in the following geographic areas"? Geo-blocking is all about artificial scarcity, and if it was being done between US states it might even be treated as collusion. But since it's an international thing, the law says it's OK. Movie watchers beg to differ.
Thanks to the Internet, the world is now a very small place; when a movie is released, it's usually all over the world within hours, regardless of rights-holders wishes and fantasies to the contrary. So content owners can continue to tie the hands of companies like Netflix, and Netflix and the like have no choice but to honour the content owners' wishes. And the stricter the enforcement of geo-blocking is, the more Netflix users will resort to torrenting, or stop watching altogether. Either way, the industry is shooting itself in the foot - it has people willing to pay to watch a movie, and it's telling them to fuck off.
If cars were geo-blocked there would be a brisk business devoted to unblocking them, even though it might cost quite a bit of money. The equivalent for movie fans is a torrent site - except torrented movies can be had almost for free. I expect a rise in torrenting among non-geeks who would rather spend their money on legally obtained movies, if only someone would put out their hand and take it.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Maybe not use NetFlix? I don't. Why should I when I can watch video lectures on YouTube?
I want to enjoy television, but all of this walled garden crap has to end. There are more content providers producing original content which require me to subscribe to multiple services which I don't have money for or time to enjoy.
The only thing I currently have is Amazon Prime and the only reason I have it is because I get other Amazon services for free. I could care less about their selection although it is improving. I am not going to subscribe to any of these services and while I am falling behind on my pop culture references, I will have to just learn to adapt.
Another user referenced Youtube Lectures, which is good until YouTube pulls their walled garden crap. Hulu already seems to want to do the same thing which ended my subscription with them.
In other news, books are still around and I feel a bit more accomplished having read through one of them instead of losing hours watching lame or rehashed plots of television shows.
Place something witty here
As an European, when my VPN finally failed a few months ago, I simply cancelled Netflix.
Since then, I've spent the same level of money I used to pour into Netflix + VPN to buy Blu-Rays of recent good movies (a pretty rare occurrence per year, given the abysmal quality of movies). On the whole, I'm pretty happy with the change.
As for TV series, it's not like if there were many "The Shield", "Breaking bad" or other gems of that level around, so I expect the investment to be pretty low.
In the end it's a win, so I don't plan to go back, ever.
So, thanks Netflix for making me realise this.
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
They are still in a 20th century mindset whereby they artificially create temporal and geographic scarcity in order to increase their revenues. That does not work any more, even if they refuse to understand it. Content providers, what people want is for the content to be available everywhere, all the time, in all devices, at reasonable prices and in simple, user-friendly ways. As long as you refuse to do so, people will resort to piracy. You can fight it, you can scream and adopt hypocritical pseudo-moral positions, but people will carry on doing it - you have been trying to thwart them for almost two decades now, without any significant success. It's up to you: try to make the best of the new status quo, by implementing the above, or keep your heads deeply stuck up your collective asses, and watch piracy grow every passing year.
quit watching TV, they need viewers, and without viewers they will go bankrupt, too bad the population dont get it so they wont follow my advise
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If only Netflix supported net neutrality, you know the system where everyone receives what they've paid for.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
These customers were trying to actually *pay* for the content they wanted, as opposed to just pirating it, and still the asshole executives stuck in the 20th century insist on trying to block it. This is so incredibly disappointing. Surely we can continue to band together to oppose these absurd geo-restrictions. I have no doubt that the people at Netflix are very talented and will continue figuring out ways to stop it, but we have the numbers behind us. If media companies want to prevent piracy, they need to stop trying to control how and where we can access the media we have voluntarily chosen to pay for. They need to start treating us like actual *customers* instead of fighting us like the enemy.
How about you just log into your home system remotely and play netflix from a browser when you travel abroad. No VPN required. Works for me. As far as people that live in other countries...well sucks for you.
Netflix currently insists that one install SilverLight which is a Microsoft program in order to view NetFlix. This slaps Linux users right out of the boat and is a serious insult for those who refuse to run Windows products. It is an unacceptable situation. It is as if it is a conspiracy to force people to run Windows.
One more thing... Much of the need for these pathetic geo-restrictions is actually the *music* industry, funnily enough. Because they sell distribution rights to copyrighted music to a different companies in every country, licensing a work for streaming in one country requires a whole different set of agreements than in another country. I believe this is why, even if a content provider like the BBC wants to make its content available everywhere, they can't until they've secured the rights for every song used in the media for every country. It's absolutely appalling. RIAA and ASCAP fucking us all over yet again, even in a completely different medium!
Oh I see. Only when it benefits them. When it doesn't, they're just like the ISPs - they're not interested in it. I guess all big companies are inherently schizophrenic. To me blocking a VPN violates net neutrality.
Region-blocking is illegal in many countries so governments and people need to object to the practice of creating an import monopoly on downloadable content. My country is also trying to tax downloadable content, so I have more reason to demand that such imports compete in a free market.
friggin freetards, tv shows dont just magically appear, peoples jobs depend on that shit
Until they start showing everything worldwide without any sort of geoblocking
The reason the movie industry doesn't want to sell worldwide licenses to netflix is because they think they can strong-arm a better licensing deal out of local tv stations if the content is not already available on netflix there. But if they stopped to think for one second they'd realize that the audience of a local tv station has almost no overlap with the audience of an english speaking streaming service.
It doesn't matter if it's up to netflix or not. IF they're not opening their entire library I'm not going to pay for it. Would you buy petrol at a petrol station if they told you that sorry, half of it is water, but it's not our fault?
And anyway, how useful is that subscription if you're living outside the US? Content providers have to wise up and realize this is now a global audience and you can't just target one nation anymore, we communicate on a global level and disjointed experiences don't work anymore. You want to talk to your friends about a video and if they can't see the same thing as you they're going to obtain it some other way and just keep getting frustrated with these antiquated policies
Twinstiq, game news