On: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

[torgian]

Piracy is alive and kicking in a lot of countries still, as I'm sure some of you know. Netflix is probably partially at fault for this.

When I travel to different countries and pull up Netflix, I see shows available in that country that aren't available in another. It's annoying.

Of course, a VPN takes care of this (to an extent).

[maeln → torgian]

> When I travel to different countries and pull up Netflix, I see shows available in that country that aren't available in another. It's annoying.

This is, a lot of time, not Netflix fault (or only partially). Distribution contract with exclusivity clauses can have been signed before Netflix ultimately implanted in the country. It means, they cannot get the right to stream even if they wanted before X years. They also have to start competing against local company who are already well integrated in the local market and can have more leverage power / money to invest. At the end of the day, hen Netflix start in a country with X amount of user but a local TV station already have several time the viewer, there is less incentive for Netflix to spend big bucks to get a specific license until they reach a bigger amount of membership.

[dillonmckay → maeln]

The majority of users don’t care about the intricacies of international IP laws.

People just want to watch a show or movie, and it is easier to travel to another country to watch something, than procuring it in one’s own country?

[maeln → dillonmckay]

Yes okay, people also don't care about the intricacies of gravity but it's still affect them. Just like you cant decide how gravity works, Netflix cant get licensing however they want.

Also, I highly doubt that traveling to an other country is more easy than getting the show in you own country. Unless it is banned in your country, the cost of a blue-ray is usually way cheaper than a flight ticket.

[procinct → torgian]

I used to always use a VPN for Netflix but then they started cracking down and it stopped working. Are you still able to use a VPN to view content from a different region?

[dewey → procinct]

It also depends on which country you want to watch through a VPN. The most desired countries like US / UK usually have a lot of working VPNs available as the VPN companies put a lot of resources into keeping them working. Using a VPN for a smaller country usually doesn't work in my experience.

[dillonmckay → dewey]

I always liked the idea of using VPNs from different countries to see what local and regional shows and movies are offered in the respective region.

[dewey → dillonmckay]

There’s also https://www.justwatch.com for that.

Disclaimer: I work there

[kkarakk → procinct]

if the vpn is well known it gets blocked by netflix, have to experiment with what doesn't get tracked

[maeln → kkarakk]

Setting up you own VPN with a cheap VPS has a higher chance of working but you have to be careful about your VPS provider. For example, I know that a lot of OVH owned IPs are banned from Netflix.

[Freak_NL → kkarakk]

At that point simply grabbing a torrent seems easier and more reliable.