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Netflix: Sure, We'll Crack Down On VPN Use (Wink Wink)

Last week Netflix announced that the company had expanded into 130 new countries, bringing its grand streaming total to 190 nations. But with the fractured state of content licensing, Netflix still has to strike individual licensing agreements for each specific country. That has resulted in a renewed interest in VPNs to engage in what's basically "Netflix tourism," or sampling content purportedly restricted in your area.

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Speaking at CES, Netflix executive Neil Hunt basically admitted that trying to crack down on VPN use is essentially impossible, since such services can just change IP addresses to avoid blacklists.

In an apparent desire to quell the worries of broadcast partners about VPN use, Netflix has now issued a new blog post in which it tries to walk back that comment with what's basically a sort of non-statement:

quote:
Some members use proxies or “unblockers” to access titles available outside their territory. To address this, we employ the same or similar measures other firms do. This technology continues to evolve and we are evolving with it. That means in coming weeks, those using proxies and unblockers will only be able to access the service in the country where they currently are.
Note Netflix pulls up short of acknowledging they're not really doing anything new, or admitting that these measures don't actually work. That's something that has flown over the head of politicians and broadcasters in places like Australia, which have called on Netflix and governments to declare war on proxies on VPNs. Netflix continues to make it clear its eventual goal is uniform content licensing across all of its 190 countries, but the company admits that's a goal that remains ten to twenty years out.

As an aside, Finder has comprised a pretty impressive list of all Netflix content available by country, as well as an interactive global map and a full comparison table that shows how little of the full American Netflix content catalog many countries are getting.

Most recommended from 92 comments



buzz_4_20
join:2003-09-20
Dover, NH

8 recommendations

buzz_4_20

Member

Devil's Advocate Here

How many people are using a VPN because they have an ISP that doesn't play well with Netflix?

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

4 recommendations

maartena

Premium Member

Media companies....

They were probably forced to or "asked nicely" by the media companies to take a stand, knowing that it will be almost impossible. They probably had to make that announcement BECAUSE they are in 130 countries now, and the people from the 100 or so countries they just added probably all used VPN to get to Netflix in the 30 countries they already had.

I use a SmartDNS all the time. Not just for Netflix, but also for Amazon (UK catalog), and to access BBC iPlayer, Canadian channels, Australian channels, and Dutch television. It's incredibly hard to block and/or blacklist, SmartDNS can easily make changes to fix it - sometimes even completely automatic - so it is a cat and mouse game that just keeps happening.

And there are legal uses for SmartDNS. First off, there actually is no law against geographical circumvention. SmartDNS is just as legal as you buying a region-2 DVD disk while traveling in Europe, and then playing it on your region-free DVD player here in the USA. You BOUGHT the content, you PAID for it, you can play it. If you want to watch BBC iPlayer, you have to have bought a UK TV license. Granted, I don't have one (Wink, wink), but hundreds of thousands of Britons that live in Spain and Portugal do. Spain and Portugal are more or less the "Florida" of Europe, a lot of people from colder European countries retire there, and want access to their home television service. They could always do that with satellite, but now they can also use the online catalogs. As long, of course, you are legally entitled to.

Bottom line: If you pay for the content, you are not breaking any laws if you use technology to get to it while in other countries.

For me, Netflix becomes actually WORTH it with a SmartDNS. It is incredible how many titles of movies are NOT available in the USA (To name a few: Back to the future trilogy, Matrix trilogy, Godfather Trilogy, but many others) but ARE available in another catalog of an English speaking country (so unmodified) of from a country that merely subtitles their movies (Scandinavian countries, Netherlands/Belgium) where you can then just simply turn off the subtitling.

If you want to watch Iron Man 1, 2 and 3 on Netflix..... you can. You just have to go to three different countries, with Iron Man 3 only available on Netflix UK.

As a matter of fact, if I can no longer use Netflix with international catalogs, I will probably cancel it and revert to piracy again to get the movies. Netflix makes it convenient, easy, and legal to watch movies and with all this geographical restriction nonsense they are just shooting themselves in the foot. I know they legally must because the media companies ask them to, but unless they are ready to lose a lot of money (most Australians use Netflix to get to the US catalog because it has way more options than local) I don't think a lot is going to change.
shmerl
join:2013-10-21

4 recommendations

shmerl

Member

In the physical case it would have been considered xenophobic.

Imagine such scenario. A foreigner comes in the bookstore, and wants to buy a book. But the store refuses to sell the book and points to the sign: "for citizens only". How would you call such store? I'd call them xenophobic jerks.

How exactly is that different from a digital store, which refuses to sell something to foreigners? Using VPN / proxy is a digital analog of physical travel to a store which is selling something otherwise not available for you because of location. I.e. same as traveling to the store in another country gives you access to books limited to that region, using VPN / proxy gives you access to digital goods which digitial stores hide from you with geoblocking. I don't see any conceptual difference here, and such stores should also be called xenophobic jerks if they refuse to serve those who bypass those geoblocks.