Slashdot Mirror
Netflix Geoblocking Loosened Under New EU Law (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: "The European Parliament is now finalizing legislation which will allow EU residents to access their paid subscriptions for online media -- such as video streaming, games and music -- while visiting other EU countries," reports The Stack. Under the new rules, companies will not be able to arbitrarily block subscribers from accessing the content catalog of their home countries while visiting other parts of the European Union, with country of origin to be established by various possible methods besides IP address, including payment details, public tax information and 'checks on electronic identification'. The issue was brought to a head last year when Netflix began blocking the known IPs of VPN providers, often used by subscribers to access the catalogs of their home countries while travelling.
Giggity
its funny how some of these companies attack trump but then go around geolocking all their shit, they arent cool with globalism depending on how affects their money
they are fine with the cheap worker from fuckistan lowering my salary but if i use their online store to buy some digital shit in the fuckistan currency because its better for me, then i get banned
thats why facebook, microsoft, amazon... can talk all they want, it wont matter, once you redpill enough people reality shows its ugly head: they are scum, simple as that
all globalism is is a way to make money for big companies, and everyone supporting it is human feces
I guess that's one way to put it. I'd say most people use the VPNs to access content blocked in their home country, and it sounds like this order actually harms that since your country remains the same regardless of your physical location(or your VPNs physical location).
Like any other online service you should be able to access it wherever you choose to go online. This isn't some firewalled LAN it's the internet. These restrictions make absolutely no sense.
... the billing address? While there can certainly be legitimate reasons for getting a credit card that is tied to a foreign bank, that foreign bank will still have your real address. Obviously one can work around this if you get a credit card that is tied to another country and manage to deceive the bank into believing that your billing address is in the same country as they are despite your permanent shipping address (which is where they are going to physically send the card in the first place) not being so, which involves committing fraud and may be criminally prosecutable. While it probably wouldn't solve all of Netflix grievances with wanting to block people from using their service to see content that the company hasn't got licensing for in that country, that policy alone would, I think, at least *tend* to minimize the number of people that might try to get away with it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The EU rules they are officially members of DVD Regions 1 through 5, but not 6.
There's no place like
As I said before, the streaming services like Netflix would like nothing more than to offer a single streaming catalog for the entire world. It would drastically simplify their operations. All these stories make it seem like they're the culprits, when they're not. They're forced to do this silly geo-blocking by the music and movie studios, who use it as a way to eek out a little more profit via a graduated rollout schedule - movie first shows up in theaters, then via pay per view, then for sale on blu-ray, then on subscription services, then syndicated on TV. Each earlier step gives them a little more revenue per viewer than the later steps.
The "correct" solution to this is for these studios to get their butts in gear and work at synchronizing these rollouts throughout the entire world. But because they have a monopoly on their shows, there is no competition, so there is no pressure for them to work at synchronizing. So they've been lazy and have been relying on the crutch of geo-blocking to prevent certain countries from getting access to movies and shows which have been out for months in other countries. Since the problem stems from a government-granted monopoly (copyright), the correct solution is for government to step in and prohibit use of the geo-blocking crutch.
Surely the customer is umm... the customer and so their location is irrelevant?
General question: are there any examples of businesses looking after their customers' needs without there being a regulation 'requiring' them to?
Requiem for the American Dream
Why are you so upset about our geo blocking?
Isn't Netflix is that racist company founded by some jewish guy related to Sigmund Fraud and Edward Bernays?
Isn't the EU that failed racist experiment where the indigenous (white) peoples of Europe were to be interbred with blacks and thereby eliminated in order to realise the Jewish funded, pan-europa Kalegri plan?
Who the fuck are these losers and why are they relevant to slashdot?
Circumventing Geo-Blocking is not illegal in Australia, either.
http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/policy-faqs/online-copyright-infringement-faqs#VPN
The thing is, these media bullies are restricting the content by strong-arming the competition, not the laws of the land, wrt geo-blocking.
The real take FTA:
Residence check and data protection
The agreed legislation will allow online content service providers to take “reasonable and proportionate measures” to verify the EU country of residence of the subscriber. A closed list of permitted verification methods includes checks on electronic identification, payment details, public tax information, postal address details or IP address checks. Service providers will be required to inform customers of the verification methods used and take appropriate security measures to protect their data.
I'm interested to know if this means they will be forced to delete any OTHER bits of data they have been accumulating on each user which does not align with the new legislation...
Definitely pressurized. It's always easier to offer one, single catalog for the whole world rather than offering bits and pieces. It's sad Netflix has to succumb to immense pressure and he source of most of it seems obvious. I've been using ivacy vpn's manual config to make my way but I wish all the Netflix subscribers in the world had unconditional, out-of-the-box access to all of Netflix's content regardless of their location. I'm even betting users demanding more content might even be ready to pay a little more just to get access to all their favorite shows.