
Netflix to block proxy access to content not available locally - msravi
http://in.reuters.com/article/us-netflix-launch-idINKCN0US23020160114
======
sergiotapia
People will probably just torrent things again. In the minds of the vast
majority of people piracy is a victimless crime. These people have only
stopped pirating because it's easier to pay and use Netflix. Guaranteed
they'll go back to torrenting.

Gabe Newell: "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy.
Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said.
"If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from
the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the
product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US
release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the
pirate's service is more valuable."

~~~
0xffff2
Again? I used to regularly check Netflix before Pirate Bay, but it's been so
long since anything I wanted to watch was streamable on Netflix (and I'm in
the US too) that I rarely bother anymore. Even at the best of times it was
maybe 50/50.

Hell, I torrented "The Man in the High Castle" even though I have Amazon Prime
just because I didn't feel like installing Silverlight. Even when you are
paying for the content, it can still be easier to watch via other means.

~~~
pknopf
How do you avoid your ISP from punishing you for using torrents? Do you use
private trackers?

~~~
Nexxxeh
You don't connect to the swarm using your ISP-supplied IP address.

You can use a VPN service and tunnel all your traffic through that.

You can use a seedbox, which is basically your torrent client running on a
virtual machine or shared machine in a data centre. The P2P stuff doesn't come
to or from your home IP. And it all happens at data centre speed.

If you use a private tracker, a seedbox is the way to go because you can leave
it constantly seeding 24/7 at high speed so you build an amazing ratio.

You can pick up a seedbox with 700GB storage, 1Gb/s download, and 50Mb/s
upload (both speed limited, but unlimited total) for less than a fancy coffee
a week. Plex integration, OpenVPN connections included (so you can bypass any
ISP-level filters), encrypted FTP etc.

~~~
iyn
Can you recommend good seedbox providers?

~~~
Nexxxeh
I'm extremely happy with seedboxco.net, the SB-50 package more than meets my
needs (of downloading Linux ISOs, obviously. _Ahem_ ).

There are other higher end packages with stupidly fast upload, but SB-50 is
vastly faster than my linespeed anyway.

They do week trials for a couple of quid.

There's a slight learning curve, but as you're on HN, I doubt you'll struggle
with the basics. And you will pick up the cool extras.

Do check out the VPN (iirc) tab, for creating OpenVPN accounts.

The only app thingy I used was Plex, and it worked flawlessly.

Ferral Hosting's seedbox hosting was fine, but it had a steeper learning curve
and didn't give me anything compelling over SeedboxCo.

------
chatmasta
Netflix has an obvious economic incentive to allow location spoofing. As long
as you are paying them, they make money. I read a statistic that claimed
Netflix had ~300k users in Australia, even though Netflix was technically "not
available" in Australia.

The content rights-holders are the ones dependent on the licensing
restrictions. They're the ones who get upset when users circumvent those
restrictions, not Netflix.

Netflix faces two threats: 1) economic loss from foreign subscribers canceling
their subscription because location spoofing no longer works, and 2) economic
loss from rights-holders suing Netflix for a negligently insufficient blocking
system.

It is in Netflix's best interest to only haphazardly block spoofing, i.e.
implement a weak technical system, as long as they can legally prove they are
making a "best effort" to detect and block location spoofing. Of course, any
semi-technical person knows that even a best effort will fail, because any
sort of blocking system is an endless game of cat-and-mouse that Netflix can
never win.

Basically, yeah, they're "blocking" proxies, but ;-) ;-) ;-), they know you
can still do it.

~~~
malchow
Doesn't "blocking proxies" require Netflix to keep tabs on mercurial exit IP
ranges for an ever-growing number of proxy or VPN services?

It seems almost inevitable that they will enforce this rule only lazily.

~~~
Freak_NL
The BBC seems to be managing to do just that quite well. Their IPlayer is
quite hard to access from outside of Great Britain.

If Netflix will actually do this, then it will be impossible to use Netflix
with the majority of commercial VPN providers.

(Netflix will lose me as a customer as well.)

~~~
vidbina
I will have to leave too if Netflix succeeds in blocking such services.
Between The Netherlands and Germany (two neighbouring countries) the offering
of shows is significantly different. It sucks having to figure out which shows
to choose for replacements of the exciting stuff you were watching before.
Frustrating how territorial licensing deals are still made in a world that
seems to be getting smaller, with couch-surfers, businessmen and average
Joes/Janes crossing borders ever more often.

------
izacus
Well, considering the fact that on US Netflix I can access 6000 titles and
local Netflix doesn't even have 500 (and most of them aren't anything I'm
interested in) that pretty much just means I'll stop paying the subscription
:/

Since there's pretty much no other source of most of the shows locally except
for buying extremely expensive BluRays I guess people will just revert to
torrenting.

~~~
bmelton
> I guess people will just revert to torrenting

Or, maybe not watching those shows?

~~~
izacus
I somehow doubt you'll be able to persuade the young population to stop
watching any shows (no other streaming services are available due to small
size of the country here) or to start watching Mexican soap operas on
broadcast TV.

Especially when torrents are readily available in HD and fiber internet
connection rather widely available.

Also since most of the streaming licensing deals kinda forget about most EU
countries except the 5 biggest ones, the sympathies towards the copyright
holders are kinda running low. You can show a middle finger to people in a
country so many times before they stop caring about your copyright licensing
deals.

~~~
bmelton
I doubt it too, but I'm willing to waste the karma on putting it forth as a
valid alternative.

I don't know when everybody got so entitled that they were willing to go
through whatever means necessary to get access to content otherwise
unavailable to them, but it boggles my mind how comfortably everybody seems
able to justify it.

~~~
arihant
The thing is, if a piece of IP is not available in a country, and given the
fact that it might be worthless by next season, is distributing that IP for
free for that year in the country a bad karma? If anything, when the
production house does license out in that country, they can run the current
season directly as population has already watched earlier ones.

If anything, this should push production houses to work better with rights
distribution. In India, that's already happening with "Premier" channels which
run seasons alongside US counterparts. For shows that appear on now Premier
channels, I have not torrented a single one. I am also sure that if not for
rampant torrenting, this would have never happened.

Internet is a great leveller. Take a deep breath, let it in. By the time we
all have gray hair, this will be long sorted out. You can't lock down IP by
country in 2016. If you built a system that loses money if it leaks
internationally, it's your fault. Next, try to build a business model that has
more chances of survival than chances of sand retaining in your fist.

The _real_ problem is that people still expect a century old business model to
work. If it doesn't, they lose their minds.

If a tree falls in another part of the world, and nobody saw it, nobody
visited that forest for 10 years, nobody wanted to use that wood, did it
really fall? Did American oak planters lose money because of it?

~~~
tajen
People often ask me: "If there were no copyright law, how would studios earn
money?"

What artists and moviemakers could do is, sell the right to see contents
before others. Assuming that DRM is cracked and leaked after some time and
will inevitably fall into the "public domain", users would not buy "a song" or
"a movie", but the lifestyle of watching it directly out from the factory,
while others would have to wait until it's cracked.

When the season 2, 3 and 4 of Arrow aren't available in Europe, we know that
Netflix isn't selling the lifestyle of being up-to-date with fashion.

~~~
Suncho
_People often ask me: "If there were no copyright law, how would studios earn
money?"_

They'd work on commission. They'd work on crowd-funded commission. If you want
a movie made, you pay for it yourself. If you want to watch a movie that's
already been made, why shouldn't that be free? The work has already been done
and paid for.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Neat. Does that apply to cars and houses and food as well?

The work has already been done and paid for, after all.

~~~
Karunamon
Cars and houses and food are physical goods (and in at least two of your
examples, fungible and/or life-sustaining) with distribution costs, intrinsic
value, and scarcity.

Digital files have none of these.

~~~
waterlesscloud
That's not the point under discussion.

The rationalization here was that the work was already done, so why shouldn't
it be free?

It's a silly rationalization and I'm pointing that out.

~~~
Karunamon
The rationalization only works on goods that meet the criterion I just
described.

~~~
bmelton
Then it doesn't work for pirated movies, which has distribution costs
associated.

You'll need to add yet another caveat to your original claim to make it work.

~~~
Karunamon
Once again, I was speaking of digital content. The "distribution cost" of a
600-4000MB file is effectively nil.

~~~
vidbina
Netflix seems to spend a fortune in encoding and distributing this type of
content. I think that distribution may not always be as simple of a problem
and should not be marginalised as such. Especially if you consider the numbers
in terms of demand and quality expectations for such services.

~~~
Karunamon
Literal thousands of people are distributing various content, for free, right
now. Out of sheer altruism most of the time - they get nothing back after
their initial download. Pick your favorite torrent site.

The fact that the business landscape wouldn't tolerate this as a legitimate
method is a failure of ego and imagination, not something inherent to the
system.

------
ryandrake
If I went back 25 years or so and showed my younger self the Internet of
today, what would probably surprise me the most is how stubbornly we've
clinged to political borders and the extent to which we've tried to graft them
onto a mostly border-less computer network. I was pretty convinced back then
that the internet would help to blur the lines between States, but it appears
that the opposite has happened.

~~~
izacus
Yeah, funny how I'm allowed to order a DVD from US or Germany, while at the
same time I'm forbidden from paying to watch that show from a German or US
streaming service just because I live a bit to the south.

~~~
rhino369
The reason for this is the technical difference between streaming and playing
a DVD. Transporting a DVD isn't copyright infringement. Streaming always
requires a license because it involves making a copy.

Netflix actually built itself on the fact that you can send DVDs wherever you
want.

~~~
kuschku
> Streaming always requires a license because it involves making a copy.

This does not apply in Germany.

Copies that exist purely in cache, or, copies, that stop working after some
time, are always legal, and you need no license for that.

It’s why streaming music from a chinese website is legal.

------
tibbydude
I will just cancel my account.

I use a proxy service as the South Africa content library is piss poor , no
use saying you are available in the country if you can only carry a small
selection.

Naspers owns the satellite tv market here and they launched a streaming
service months before Netflix arrived and signed up all the good stuff.

------
sharkweek
I think this is lip service directed at international content owners as they
expand globally. They might try and shut down access for a few of the current
big names, but we all know this won't be effective longer than people can stay
one step ahead.

Netflix doesn't actually care about people using VPNs as long as they're
collecting $10 a month. In fact if Netflix could do away with regional content
restrictions entirely, they'd massively benefit.

This is one of the two biggest reasons that Netflix is pushing into original
content, second to only third party content getting more expensive/exclusive.
Netflix doesn't have to deal with any of this if they own the rights to the
content streaming on the service.

~~~
hartator
Netflix doesn't own the rights of House of Cards season 1-2 in France.

------
jrnkntl
"... to access Netflix's popular shows such as "House of cards" and "Orange is
the new black" ..."

Well, these series should be the ones that you should NOT need to resort to
proxies for, since they're Netflix owned content.

I wonder if Smart DNS proxy servers[1] will also be affected...

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_DNS_proxy_server](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_DNS_proxy_server)

~~~
golergka
> Well, these series should be the ones that you should NOT need to resort to
> proxies for, since they're Netflix owned content.

Except Netflix offered exclusive licenses for them to some local tv networks,
as far as I understand.

~~~
levesque
Again the problem is cable TV. Hope it dies a quick death so we can move on to
more modern channels of distribution.

~~~
izacus
So instead of cable TV I'll only be watching "This service is not available in
your country" text on my home set? :P

------
JustSomeNobody
I would seriously HATE to be one of Netflix's content negotiators. That has to
be one frustrating job trying to get content producers to realize they have
been asleep for the past decade and the world has changed.

------
distances
The content is one thing, but I could live with country based restrictions.
What I'm afraid is the availability of subtitles.

I'm from a country in Northern Europe and live in a country in Central Europe.
I want my movies and series without dubbing, and with English subtitles. US
Netflix has been a perfect solution for this.

~~~
r3m6
Same here. I switched from Amazon Prime to NetFlix for the better subtitles.

NetFlix Germany is already better than Amazon Germany, but NetFlix USA is the
best.

I wonder why it is sooo hard to provide original subtitles and original
language for all movies. Is that also a licensing issue or just laziness?

~~~
lucaspiller
As I understand the subtitles are usually licensed from different people than
the producers of the shows, so yes it is probably licensing issues too.

As an example on Netflix Italy you can watch Lie To Me with Italian or English
audio, but the subtitles are only available in Italian. If you switch to a UK
proxy you get English subtitles...

------
otterley
Netflix's announcement: [https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/evolving-
proxy-det...](https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/evolving-proxy-
detection-as-a-global-service)

> 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. We
> are confident this change won’t impact members not using proxies.

~~~
tehwebguy
When Netflix made the whole "Netflix is Available Around the World" post at
first I thought they had some incredible IP agreements that allowed them to
finally "go global" for relax but really they just mean that they have have
some level of service in all of those countries.

------
msravi
How are they going to do this? I mean, anyone could spin up a machine located
in the US within a few minutes - how would they know?

~~~
dangrossman
They don't need to know. They can show you the content that corresponds to the
country matching your billing information, regardless of your IP address. It
doesn't say they're going to block proxies, only that you won't be able to use
proxies to watch content not available in your country.

~~~
JTon
I don't believe the content distribution rights operate that way. I think what
you can see depends on where you are physically located. Not where you are
from.

~~~
jmreid
The iTunes store currently works based on your billing information.

~~~
jcomis
Spotify is also based on billing address

------
ascendantlogic
I assume Netflix would happily stream everything everywhere but the content
producers that license the content want strict control over who sees what
when. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

~~~
shmerl
_> the content producers that license the content want strict control over who
sees what when_

That's just stupid, or there is some very sick collusion and conflict of
interests going on there. Normal creators should be interested in maximizing
reach, not in limiting it. The more reach they get - the higher should be
their profit.

~~~
LukeB_UK
They sell it to whoever pays them highest in a region

~~~
shmerl
Which undermines creators' reach if that middleman imposes on them some
restrictions, such as not using other distributors which ends up in this
geoblocking and such. In the competitive digital market, such middlemen with
exclusivity restrictions should not exist. The fact that distributors have
such a sway that they can impose limitations shows that competition is poor
(i.e. there aren't enough distributors or they have very uneven influence).

------
thenipper
Oh boy. I work for an NGO that has expats all over the globe. This is
definitely going to bum some folks out...

------
johanneskanybal
Hello popcorn time and torrents in general, I really gave it a fair go to pay
for content.

~~~
rhino369
If you are using a proxy you weren't really paying for content in the first
place because Netflix didn't have the right to sell it to you.

~~~
CaptSpify
So the money never left his account? Interesting!

~~~
rhino369
You are paying Netflix for __different __content. It 's like renting a room at
Motel6 and walking into a Hilton and sleeping there instead. Sure you paid,
but you didn't pay for that Hilton room.

~~~
KMag
From a different prospective, he's willing to pay for content in his area. By
refusing Netflix the rights to sell the content in his area, the rights
holders are indirectly refusing to sell him the content. He offered them the
money, but now it goes to someone else. By showing the money is there in his
market, he does encourage the rights holders to allow Netflix to sell in his
market.

I understand other entities likely hold the rights in his area than the ones
allowing Netflix to sell content in the US.

Analogies only go so far, but it's more like he tried to pay for a Hilton room
in Elbonia, and Hilton said "No f'ing way we allow franchises in Elbonia", so
he paid for a Motel6 and then went and slept for free in an abandoned building
where someone had illegally written Hilton above the door. Yes, Hilton's
intellectual property rights are being violated, but he's not incurring direct
costs upon Hilton, and he did give first offer to Hilton. Hilton is losing
opportunity cost, but it's hard to blame the person who tried to pay them.

~~~
rhino369
The problem with your analysis here is assuming that these right holders
aren't licensing their content in these countries. And sometimes that is true.
In those cases, it's a sort of no-harm no-foul situation. If the person can't
pay, no revenue was lost.

But a lot of the time they are making it available, but Netflix just isn't the
company who bought it.

It is netflix's job to go and spend teh money to get content licenses for
countries where they are selling their service.

------
jo909
I often switch countries via VPN multiple times a day to access certain shows
or movies, and thus had access to a really large library. This fulfilled 99%
of my video entertainment needs, and piracy was generally no longer required.
I even changed my habits and no longer need to watch everything new ASAP, but
now I can wait until it is available somewhere in the world via Netflix.

I'm not sure if that is true but I always felt that by using Netflix, even if
it was somewhat fraudulent in the "wrong" country, the content owner did get
their few pennies "from me" for my view.

------
lenepp
Imagine if you were blocked from reading an ebook because you crossed a
border. Regional/national licensing of content is a rent-seeking anachronism.
It's really sad to see Netflix cave on this.

Incidentally, this is more or less contrary to what's happened with VAT in the
EU, where if you buy digital content online, your are charged VAT for your
home country if that's where your credit card is from and you choose it as
your residing country in a purchase form - even if you are in another country
when you make the purchase.

In Europe, as I understand it, Netflix is going to be forced to make sure your
home country content goes with you, even when you leave the country
([http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35051054](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35051054)).
I'm not sure if this means you will also be excluded from seeing content
available in the country you've travelled to, if it's not available in your
home country, but essentially it means you're sort of carrying around your
nationality when you are accessing content online, just like you can now carry
around your country's sales tax. It's the worst of all worlds. Imagine if e.g.
companies allowed the Chinese government's restrictions to content to be
imposed on its citizens outside china too. Yes, the EU looks like it's trying
to get rid of some of the weird barriers to portability of content, but
there's a chance this could go in the wrong direction.

In any case, the whole system is artificial, profoundly inefficient and
unethical in a number of ways.

------
hkdobrev
The link of the article could be replaced with
[http://www.reuters.com/article/netflix-launch-
idINKCN0US2342...](http://www.reuters.com/article/netflix-launch-
idINKCN0US23420160114?irpc=932) as it is the canonical desktop version with
more info.

~~~
merlincorey
I couldn't find any extra information on that page.

------
oconnore
Why do media companies block entire countries? Selling an apple to someone in
Ireland is the same profit as selling to an American, yes?

~~~
swozey
No, in different countries different publishers own (the same) content. They
have to license the media from the country-specific publishers.

I don't know the logic as to why Netflix published content isn't available
worldwide, though. Maybe they have non-competes or something.

~~~
rhino369
Netflix doesn't own all of its Netflix published content. Sony owns House of
Cards. Lionsgate owns Orange is the New Black.

Netflix's early tv productions deals were similar to how regular TV purchased
content. You custom order the show, but you only get "first run" rights. The
production company keeps the rights to international markets and even re-run
rights.

In the USA, you can buy House of Cards episodes from Comcast and Netflix
doesn't get a penny for it.

This is unlike, say HBO, which owns control control of the content they
create.

------
jarnix
So does it mean that Smartflix.io (I heard about it a few days ago, probably a
solution for non-geek people) is dead already ?

~~~
cocoggu
I just asked the Smartflix team about it and here are their answer: "Hello!
Yes, we are aware about the recent statement that Netflix has published, and
needless to say we are upset about it!

However this does not mean the end of Smartflix. We are constantly able to
outsmart these systems, and we will continue to do so for as long as humanly
possible - so fear not!"

------
emergentcypher
Yeah, I'll be cancelling my Netflix account when this happens.

------
dbg31415
[https://twitter.com/kimdotcom/status/288199968932630528](https://twitter.com/kimdotcom/status/288199968932630528)

Not rocket science.

I pay for Netflix, and cable, and Hulu, and Prime... and still I have to
torrent things when Netflix or my dumbass cable company won't stream what I
want to watch in 1080p (don't get me started on who is at fault, I don't care
they're all cunts when they cut the quality). Or when they don't have a show
fast enough, then I'll torrent. The moment the show is out it should be on
Netflix and other services. Doesn't seem hard, just release the show to
network TV and Netflix the same day -- curious why we still have these 6-12
month delays on shows coming to Netflix in 2016.

------
thieving_magpie
Is it possible this is just lip service? And that they'll maybe block a few of
the highly popular VPN's and then turn a blind eye to everything else?

Seems like a win-win for Netflix if so. They can claim they can faux pretend
to care about VPN so as not to violate their contractual obligations.

------
abalashov
I lived abroad for several years and did OpenVPN from my tablet to US server
of my own + default route over tunnel + NAT out other wide. An HTTP proxy is
much too transparent, and wouldn't have allowed me to watch Hulu+ past a
certain point.

I assume that's still an option, as long as one's server isn't from a known
VPS provider/farm or what have you.

Although, frankly, the whole thing is pretty ridiculous. I had a home in the
US, a permanent address in the US, a US credit card from a US bank and with a
US billing address, and derived all of my income in the US. My outrage at
geographic content licencing altogether notwithstanding, I was a US customer
and should be able to watch shows wherever I damn well please without
resorting to such measures.

------
frankcaffrey
Well things ain't that tricky as they look No netflix not blocking any vpn and
they cant as per these valid points: 1) Netflix has previously also threatened
to curb VPN practice but hasn't done so. 2) If Netflix goes ahead with this,
it will see an unprecedented rise in un subscription from customers,
worldwide, as people only use Netflix because they can use their same account
to access different libraries, especially when they travel abroad. 3) If
Netflix goes ahead with this, people will simply turn to downloading torrents
while protecting their real IP address by using a solid VPN service like
www.purevpn.com (Which works best for torrenting - p2p)

So yes use any vpn works best for unblocking be it any site Purevpn preferably

------
ohitsdom
What incentive does Netflix have in shutting down proxies/VPNs? I'm assuming
content owners bring this up in negotiations, but I wouldn't think it'd be a
big enough deal to push Netflix on.

And how will Netflix accurately detect proxies/VPNs?

~~~
alkonaut
Content owners notify them when they notice a vpn/proxy service that still
works, and reminds Netflix that it is a violation of their agreement. Netflix
blocks that particular service and the process repeats until the most common
services are blocked.

------
ape4
In other news, proxy services announce new sneaky detection avoidance
mechanisms.

~~~
hawski
What they can reliably do? They need lots of IPs in ranges of their notable
number of consumers.

~~~
ape4
Maybe something P2P. Users in different countries co-operate and run an app.
(humm, that sounds like Tor)

------
frogpelt
Could they could get around this by charging a proxy fee?

I don't know because I don't use Netflix. Would any of you who currently pay
for Netflix, pay a little more to be able to access it through a proxy?

~~~
s73v3r
No, because part of the reason for the crackdown is due to the content
creators. It's not Netflix not wanting to serve people who are using proxies.

~~~
frogpelt
True. But presumably they could pass this proxy fee on to the content
creators.

------
theseatoms
Why doesn't Netflix make their own original content available globally (to
subscribers)? I had assumed that terms of licensing agreements were what
prevented global access to most content.

~~~
lgbr
Because that content was also licensed by Netflix to other companies. House of
Cards, for example, was licensed to companies in Australia, New Zealand,
Germany, India, and others before Netflix's arrival there, and when Netflix
did arrive in those places, those licensing agreements were still in place,
meaning Netflix couldn't make its own content available in those countries.

~~~
theseatoms
Oh ok. So they're more interested in fulfilling the terms of those agreements
than in actually preventing people from watching their shows.

~~~
publicfig
Well, licensing is a legal agreement so there's really no way around that.

------
d3d3d3
I pirate 99% of my content while paying for Amazon/Netflix/Hulu/Cable because
it's about a billion times easier to consolidate all my content in Plex and
watch 1080p HD without worrying about a crappy internet connection. If they
made it easy to offline the video I pay for and play it through my TV then I
will consider doing otherwise but right now while I know what I am doing IS
illegal it is legal enough for me to internally justify it. I pay for content
but I reject their delivery methods.

------
mrmondo
The Australian Netflix is missing so much content I think many people will
cancel their plans because of this, myself included.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
I don't think it's as bad as many people claim. The Australian Netflix has
less content, but the US Netflix isn't that much better.

I am not sure there is a single 'Good' region. I find myself switching between
AU, US, UK and DE.

~~~
exodust
It is actually that bad in Australia.

Even the Australian movie 'Mary and Max' is not available on the Australian
Netflix but is on the US Netflix. What a joke.

Countless old US TV shows like Malcolm in the Middle... not available on
Australian Netflix. Where can I watch this in Australia? Nowhere? Great.

Netflix subscription... CANCELLED. (as soon as proxy is blocked).

------
zanethomas
Users who are willing to pay for content, or may be paying for it monthly
anyway, will simply resort to torrents.

Good going Netflix.

------
erikb
How can they do that technically? Why is nobody speaking about that? I mean
you can block some traffic from famous VPNs etc. And you may be able to see
that some traffic is drastically lower than other traffic. But otherwise they
should be unaware about my location, shouldn't they?

~~~
nickonline
The majority of people (myself included) are paying a company to provide the
DNS service to by-pass the geolocking.

Surely it's as simple for Netflix as blacklisting the range of IPs that the
company runs off. They're not going to catch 100% of people like me but I'd
warrant they'll get >90%

~~~
erikb
The thing about the IP blocking is that you need to know all these companies
in the first place. It's quite a bothersome work, considering that people may
not just want to use US proxies.

------
ChuckMcM
I wonder at what point Netflix as a distributor gets powerful enough to
dictate terms to media providers rather than the other way around (like "This
content will be playable in any country where Netflix offers service.")

~~~
noir_lord
When they can offer the producing entity more money than they would get by
sub-licensing, of course there is a convergence here, as Netflix eats into the
existing TV market the revenue that the incumbents can pay will decline
(unless they adapt) which will bring the price down of global licensing.

In effect if Netflix and the cord cutting trend continues they'll gut the
existing markets ability to pay, probably an economic term for that but I
don't know it.

------
exodust
When my proxy service stops working, I cancel my Netflix account, simple as
that.

The Australian catalogue of Netflix content is quite sad and pathetic.
Definitely not worth the monthly fee. Even if it were $2 a month, I wouldn't
bother.

------
vermooten
SmartDNS to the rescue? Also torrents. Especially torrents.

------
xupybd
I think Netflix is not to blame here but the license holders. Just more
evidence IP law is behind the times.

------
shmerl
What a nonsense. They can as well try to forbid selling books in stores to
foreigners. It's pointless and it's exactly the same level of stupidity idea.
Let's see any store making such a policy and what kind of idiots they'll be
taken for. Somehow Netflix and Co. think it's supposed to be normal in digital
case?

------
chris_wot
Guess I'll be cancelling my subscription then.

------
ck2
netflix to TRY to block proxy access

------
eva1984
Good.

------
bobby_9x
It's interesting because Netflix is a parallel to the US TV networks in the
80s.

I remember when Fox was an up and coming network. They had (at the time) edgy
content like 'Married with Children', to get more viewers..and now have
corporate drivel like 'American Idol'.

Netflix is doing the same thing. They create their own content with nudity,
swearing, and edgy content to get what the regular networks aren't really
doing (and to get the youth interested).

When they get enough market share, it will only be a matter of time before
they become the thing they tried so hard to replace: a monopoly with fading
and corporate-friendly content.

I understand why they are trying to block proxies, but how can they even tell
that I'm tunneling through SSH?

~~~
legohead
I don't understand why they are trying to block proxies, even using your
logic.

If they want to replace monopolies, then they should become they place
everyone wants to use. If everyone in Country-X cut the cord and switched to
Netflix, then Netflix wins, right? But by limiting content (by blocking
proxies), people will have less reason to switch.

~~~
bobby_9x
Business is all about relationships, especially in the case of Netflix.

Their relationships need to be beneficial to the content creators, at least
until they can have a full-platform of self-created content, which I don't
think will ever happen.

They have contracts with the content creators, which only allow them to show a
movie/show in X part of the world or country. I would imagine if they want to
show to another country, they need to pay more in licensing fees..and the
profits/numbers probably don't make sense to do that.

~~~
legohead
Ah, I understand now, thanks.

------
frik
Good there is still the DVD/BlueRay market.

No vendor lock-in, you own the goods and can resell it and you get some bonus
content as well. And all in higher quality video and audio than any streaming
service would offer. And DVB-S2 (satellite dish) offers access to thousends of
cannels for free. And free video sites like Youtube and Vimeo.

~~~
superuser2
Nope.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code)

~~~
frik
What's your point? You get most DVDs in most regions, even with optional
translated subtitles and dubs, right? I could go on, but DVDs are a everyday
articles and even your mum can buy and play them. And read the full Wikipedia
article.

~~~
superuser2
If you want to watch (say) a German movie in German while in America, you need
to import a DVD player set for the correct region. This is certainly possible
and lots of ex-pats do it, but it's not as simple as "just buy the DVD."

~~~
frik
The hard part is to get the movie, compare it to Netflix, right? If you
already got the DVD, it's physically yours.

~~~
superuser2
The hard part is to get a DVD player that will actually play the movie. You
can't walk into Best Buy in Iowa and get a European region-coded DVD player.

~~~
srinivasan
Region-free (all-region) DVD players are a thing, and they are pretty easy to
find.

~~~
teddyh
…for now.

------
s73v3r
Jesus Christ you people are such entitled little snots. With attitudes like
that, why should anyone pay for the hard work you do?

~~~
izacus
I'd love to pay content providers for their content. They refuse to allow me
to pay that money.

~~~
s73v3r
And that entitles you to just take it? Again, why should anyone pay you for
the work you do if that's what you believe?

~~~
Freak_NL
I you do a job for me, and I don't pay you, then most people will agree that I
really ought to pay you, and that you were wronged and that I am morally and
legally obliged to mend my ways. You could convincingly explain that situation
to a five-year old.

Now consider the perspective of someone who has the disposable income to pay
for digital content, and is willing to support content producers, but gets
told that his $10 is not as good as the $10 from someone from another country
with a similar standard of living. This is acceptable with physical goods,
where transport and stock have to be taken into account, but with digital
content and today's Internet speeds it is hard to garner any sympathy.

So we are left with a choice: don't watch that show, or download it illegally
and watch it. It is quite hard to convince people that by downloading the show
illegally, you are now depriving a content owner in some foreign country of
income by not being able to sell the local rights to that content for as good
a price to a local distributor; if one can be found at all, who might sell
that content to you in your country, or not, or only for a much higher price
on DVD or BluRay, depending on their whim and abstract factors such as the
local digital content market and the actions of competitors, and…

Good luck convincing these new pirates of their moral wrong.

------
serge2k
I hope they lose a ton of customers because of this.

------
fapjacks
Good luck with that game of whack-a-mole, Netflix.

------
noam87
Media companies are so charitable... every day they are making it harder and
harder for customers to pay for their content.

------
cinquemb
I can understand why people pay for these type of services because they can be
pretty convenient or satisfy the moral obligation du jour™, but for me, there
always seems to be bullshit (read: artificial technical limitations) like this
that pops up that makes me glad to have avoided the trap over the years and
just torrent and hook up how ever I want to view it myself, that is unless
actual enforcement could keep up with all the whims of media execs, which I
don't see happening.

