VPN users reckon Netflix is blocking them

Netflix is being accused of planning to enforce its terms and conditions by blocking connections from services that bypass geographic blocks. If the reported blocking proves effective, users in nations not served by the media streamer would find themselves stuck with the company's limited local catalogue, rather than …

[jjcoolaus]

This is how you treat paying customers?

Arr! Back to piracy it is, me matey!

Clearly the copyright cartels don't realise that generation y-not will pay for a good service, until it doesn't have the content they want, then they will just go to other places that DO have it.

They will never ever slow down piracy by discouraging people who want to put their hand in their pocket.

When hulu did this, they annoyed a lot of people, blocked some legit users in the USA, and then after all that the vpn companies (providing this access is part of their use case and business model) still found ways around it anyway and it's still possible to use hulu over vpn.

[Jonski]

Re: This is how you treat paying customers?

Agree. In NZ, there is no Netflix ("We'll be in NZ soon!"), the nearest we have is the woeful Quickflix. Sky TV owns the rights to most of what's popular but is expensive and near-monopoly, and the rest are wrapped up here and there on the niche streamers like TVNZ. Lightbox is restricted to only a few devices.

Or, you can illegally use a torrent and/or usenet client and the world's your mollusc.

Now, what would a "reasonable" person do?

[MrRtd]

Is Netflix contemplating suicide?

Netflix will lose this customer if they start blocking access. The whole reason for my Netflix subscription is because I can access all their content thanks to VPN services.

No doubt the big media companies are behind this, as we all know they are averse to providing easy cheap worldwide access to content including content that should have been in the public domain years ago if copyright laws weren't bastardized.

[dan1980]

Re: Is Netflix contemplating suicide?

I am not a Netflix person. I am not really a TV and movie person, truth be told and I don't use any streaming services.

That disclosure of ignorance out of the way, I suspect that Netflix are in a difficult position as they rely not only on the consumers who pay for the content but also on the producers who supply the content and they have to keep both happy.

The reason why there are geographical differences in catalogues is due to the geographic differences in licensing. Content is usually licensed per-country or region and so a competitor may already have exclusive rights to some IP or other in a given country.

Taking that favourite, Game of Throne, HBO have licensed this to Foxtel exclusively in Australia. Now, Netflix does not have GoT (due to competition with HBO Go) but if it did then the deal with Foxtel would mean that Netflix would not be able to show GoT to their Australian subscribers.

A similar thing can happen when there is a deal that, though no exclusive, is at a higher price than Netflix are prepared to pay. Thus Netflix may choose not to license the content for that region because that would eat into their margins or result in them having to raise prices or charge surcharges for some content to be fair to other consumers.

In the end, you are correct - the problem is not really services like Netflix but the producers of the content and their greed.

[TheWeddingPhotographer]

Re: Is Netflix contemplating suicide?

"In the end, you are correct - the problem is not really services like Netflix but the producers of the content and their greed."

You are correct. Same extends to regional coding of DVD's etc..

What happened to "I have a price for a product, that's the price"

The international vs Internet thing is pretty simple to fix... if Netflix is (for example) a USA organisation, they ought to sell their services in USD. That mitigates against currency issues, making the model easier. this makes the taxation issues simpler.. (but that is another whole can of worms)

[Winkypop]

Customer wants your product (an acheivement in itself)

Customer is often willing to pay for your product

Customer is deliberately blocked from consuming your product

Customer seeks alternate avenues to your product

Time to wise up boys!

[peyton?]

Shocking

"users in nations not served by the media streamer would find themselves stuck with the company's limited local catalogue"

Wait... are you saying their online selection can get even worse??

[RAMChYLD]

Re: Shocking

Try Malaysia, which gives you a crappy screen saying that it won't be in the country for the forseeable future. Ie- the item count in the catalog is precisely zero.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever happened to the 'global' economy...

If we're truly global in nature then lets do it. As a consumer I don't care how you pay your cronies, so if XYZ company in nation1 holds the rights to a show and I view it from nation2 where 123Company holds the rights, then send 123 company the funds for the view... what is it... .00000001 of a [insert your currency here]?

When the world depended on movie houses, and limited range television and radio the existing business model made a bit of sense. In the age of global Internet it does not work so well.

[RAMChYLD]

Re: Whatever happened to the 'global' economy...

Exactly my thought- the internet is going backwards. Back in 1997, I could watch Internet TV from anywhere, listen to Internet radio from anywhere. Every TV station that could afford a fast internet connection was streaming online, nevermind that Real(Crappy)Player, the biggest purveyor of streaming software, produced streams that looked like you're watching through a foggy window while listening to the audio through a walkie talkie where the other person was almost out of range most of the time, and the competitors like VivoVideo were no better. What counts was that the world was awesome. Then things changed. Nowadays I can't watch anything at all- most of the awesome sites now throw up "you're not from my country, get out!" messages or something to that extent when I try to watch videos on the site.

Bring back 1997- where everything was accessible anywhere. I don't care if the videos look and sound like crap and I get kicked off the net every time someone picks up the phone. I want to see the shows I loved again.

[Anonymous Coward]

torrents

I being ill was happily watching some crap on Netflix and I wanted to move to a tablet so I could go to bed. Netflix blocked me so I've torrented 5 season's of the show, a show in the UK was unknown.

Netflix was the easiest way to consume content. Now once more its torrenting.

Fucking idiots.