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.
Good luck with that.
Quote: “We are confident this change won’t impact members not using proxies.”
Of course, that won’t impact “members not using proxies”. That will impact in those using ’em or…
…wait…
those “former-members” you got. I see new members in PirateBay though…
….and back to torrents they go. Good job, Netflix.
It’s pointless to blame Netflix for this; it’s their content-providers who have been pushing for this for a long time now. There was a blog-post some time last year where they said so themselves and that they don’t know how long they can go postpone having to implement this. Well, it looks like that point has come.
I mean, it’s not like Netflix can just dictate the rules — the content-providers will cancel their contracts and/or not renew them if Netflix doesn’t play ball.
It’s NOT pointless to blame Netflix for this. Nobody held a gun to their head when they signed the contracts with their content providers, they willingly entered into it.
And if they didn’t enter the contracts? They’d have no content! What would the point be, then?
why do i care? they are the ones trying to sell subscriptions to us. for me, a poor offer or no offer at all are equally uninteresting.
Imagine physical book store trying to refuse selling merchandise to customers on the grounds that they are foreigners (when people from other country visit it to buy something not available in their own region). Such store will be clearly labeled as xenophobes.
Yet, somehow digital stores get away with this jerkiness when foreigners want to shop in them using digital travel analogy to bypass that geoblocking (i.e. VPNs and proxies). It’s the same level of stupidity and crookedness and they should be called xenophobes as well.
Edited 2016-01-15 18:51 UTC
Agreed, though if this is the only reason you’d label the media industry as crooks after this, you’ve probably missed the last twenty years or so. Now would be as good a time as any to stop consuming it. Most of it’s crap anyway. Sadly, the masses will just keep torrenting and, by extension, giving support to the media industry by viewing if not by buying.
Indeed. It’s not so new, just for some reason not usually called out as outright unethical and crooked thing. All kind of region locking (in DVDs and such) are all the same kind of sickness.
Last 20 years? Hollywood has been crooked since its inception, the whole industry was originally started based on stolen patents and IP.
That’s why these studios are so psychotic about prosecuting people, it’s pure projection; a thief thinks he’s surrounded by thieves, ergo their paranoia.
I’ve read about something very similar with books:
USA-made Textbooks sell overseas at much lower prices than in the States. So some companies were buying the books overseas for cheap and re-importing them into the USA to undercut the licensed distributors. The publishing companies sued the importers (and won as I recall).
SCOTUS upheld the right to import books and re-sell them.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/20/supreme-court-sides-a…
Good followup, thanks.
It’s not “xenophobia” because it’s not about where you’re from, it’s about where you currently are. And there’s no need to imagine, it’s a fairly common practice for manufacturers to block online retailers from selling their goods to other countries. In my experience most of the physical products on Amazon (except for books) can’t be shipped overseas.
I know that outdoor gear generally can’t. REI even has a list of brands that they can’t ship overseas (http://www.rei.com/help/restricted-vendors.html). I think it’s actually the majority of brands they carry, with one notable exception: REI branded gear. In a way that’s like Netflix; they’re willing to distribute their in-house product anywhere.
There’s three different business models you’re talking about here: online stores selling physical goods, online stores selling digital goods (like Google Play and iTunes), and broadcast networks (like television networks and Netflix). Geo-blocking is the norm for all three.
And it’s also a common practice for retailers to ignore manufacturer requests and sell products on the gray market. I can’t say I know about amazon in particular, but this happens on ebay, for example. Once a product is sold, the manufacturer shouldn’t really get a say in who it can or can’t be resold to. It doesn’t mean they won’t try, but I’m speaking from ethical & free market points of view.
Edit: Also bare in mind that I oppose using physical products as analogies for what one can or should do with copyrighted content because they don’t really share the same economics.
Edited 2016-01-16 10:32 UTC
That’s exactly the point. It’s they (copyright crooks) who decided that they can push for invalid physical analogy in the digital world (such as regional market segmentation), but at the same time they want to deny you the right to use the analogy of physical travel to bypass it (VPN). Hypocrites.
Edited 2016-01-16 23:33 UTC
I think that from an extreme free market point of view, no one has the right to tell a manufacturer how to sell their product, and what stipulations they apply to the sale.
You have to understand that manufacturers are in a tough position too, they need retailers to carry their products (especially the large chain retailers) and in return the retailers want (in addition to a large profit margin) some guarantees that they won’t be undercut by the competition or by overseas retailers.
It’s not easy for the retailers either, they get the largest margin on the sale (assuming they sell at RRP) but they also take a big risk if they purchase the item in large quantities.
chair,
I understand that, but if their strategy neglects a market segment, that’s 100% on them for leaving that demand unmet in the first place. And it’s 100% on them for continuing to leave that demand unmet once they learn about it. Unless the unauthorized re-sellers are breaking laws (like actual theft or not paying taxes or counterfeiting or something) then it’s fair game.
I understand the manufacturer might want sympathy because it’s their own products, but lets put this in perspective: they should be extremely thankful that the demand is being met with their own products which have been paid for rather than with a competing product! The implicit truth in this situation is that the manufacture’s official distribution channels aren’t competitive with the free market for it’s own products, which is an indicator of how poor the official channels are. If a 3rd party can distribute a company’s products to a market more efficiently than the manufacturer can, then the manufacturer should seriously consider firing it’s existing channels and taking this party on as a business partner!
It’s a fun discussion, albeit quite off topic
Edited 2016-01-17 05:08 UTC
This isn’t about criminal law, it’s about the contractual obligations between a retailer and manufacturer.
There’s nothing legally or morally wrong with a person purchasing items from a foreign online retailer. I do it often, and I’ve even used a freight forwarder to circumvent region restrictions (but it’s expensive and inconvenient).
There’s nothing legally or morally wrong with a local retailer sourcing products from a foreign distributor or retailer. It’s called parallel importing and it’s specifically allowed in my country (Australia). Our two major supermarkets commonly do it for items like batteries and personal goods (deodorant etc.). In fact in Australia the circumvention of region locking is also legally protected. IIRC software to mod the PS2 and some DVD players is (or was) hosted on websites in Australia specifically because it’s legal here.
It’s also perfectly legal for a manufacture to require a retailer or distributor to sign a contract before selling them a product. If the terms of the contract are too onerous then obviously the retailer won’t agree to them and won’t sell the product. These types of contracts are very, very common. Practically all discretionary products would be distributed under these contracts. The two major obligations for a retailer are to do with pricing (generally retailers have limits of how much and for how long they can discount from the RRP) and region. Like I said before, these contractual obligations are there to protect the retailer’s investment in purchasing the stock of the product.
If a manufacturer is blocking the sale of items into a country that no other retailer of distributor services then yes, they’re only hurting themselves. In my experience most manufactures don’t do this; the region restrictions only apply to countries that already have local distributors. I think I once tried to buy something from an online retailer in the US and the retailer checked with the manufacturer to see if there was a local distributor. There was, so the retailer couldn’t sell the item to me.
Edited 2016-01-17 06:10 UTC
chair,
I’m not denying the assertion that discrimination can be profitable and that’s why we see it. We can probably come up with some new business models to discriminate in the name of profit, which may not even be illegal, but they’re not ethical. Consumers should feel free to ignore vendor region requirements that demand they pay higher prices for sub-par internet services by using whatever means they have available to them to get the better priced services.
In this case it’s pretty much about where you are from. Physical unavailability of some merchandise is worked around by traveling to the place where it’s available, right? Like in my example with the bookstore.
In the digital case, there is no physical unavailability. There is artificial virtual lack created by digital geoblocking. So, let’s play their silly game. Using the same analogy, let’s use the virtual travel (e.g. VPN) to work around virtual lack of merchandise. Oops, they deny you ability to buy it. Therefore they don’t accept you even when virtually you are in the region where they sell what you came for, but you are from another country initially. That’s xenophobia.
And if they would claim that you can’t use the concept of virtual travel, then they are hypocrites, since they decided that they can create virtual shortage of goods (like with physical goods), but at the same time don’t allow you to do what you can with physical ones.
Edited 2016-01-16 23:31 UTC
And region blocking of digital content can be circumvented by travelling to a place where it’s available, which Netflix allows you to do regardless of where your account was registered and where your payment method is based.
Using a VPN or DNS proxy to make it appear that you are located in another country is not “virtual travel”, whatever that is. If “virtual travel” was actually a term I think it would refer to using a tele-presence robot.
And using digital geoblocking is not same as selling physical merchandise in some area (but not in another). But they still use such analogy. Users can use analogy of travel (in the digital sense) in return. But these crooks don’t want to be even. They want to own the cake and eat it too.
TL;DR: They try to deal with realities of digital space using physical analogies (i.e. blocking regions). Yet when users do it in return to them (using analogy of travel) they don’t want to accept it. So they are xenophobes and hypocrites at the same time.
Edited 2016-01-17 04:21 UTC
This has nothing to do with analogies. The reasons for region blocking are the same for physical products, digital products, and audio or video broadcast: to protect local retailers/content providers.
chair,
The internet transcends physical boundaries, so let’s drop the physical analogy altogether.
Explain why it matters where an internet service is bought and consumed? Exactly what are the content creators being robbed of? I’m hoping your answer includes something specific and tangible, rather than merely asserting that discrimination based on country should be their right.
Edited 2016-01-17 05:40 UTC
Money. The content creators want to get the best price from each region and maximise their profit. I’m not saying I agree with it, I’m just explaining how their business model works.
Netflix are actually the ones fighting against it. They’ve tried to postpone the implementation of more robust region blocking for as long as they can. I’m guessing it’s caught up to them and the content creators are now demanding that they pay a price that reflects the ability to stream content world wide (i.e. a very high price). Netflix are also increasingly creating their own content which they always distribute worldwide.
Except that retailer is non existent in the digital space. Retailer by definition is limited by physical market, and as such is always at odds with digital stores which span all those physical borders because they operate in the digital space. That’s why retailers should move aside instead of trying to slow down digital economy.
It has everything to do with them. Logic of regions is irrelevant to digital space. Yet they use that invalid logic which they borrowed from physical space. It’s only fair, that users should be able to use the same analogy in return to them – i.e. by using VPN to bypass that geoblocking. There is nothing more to add here.
Edited 2016-01-17 05:57 UTC
Other sites clearly indicated that all Netflix users are now completely screwed. Quite the slip, Thom.
So OSAlert fails at clickbait headlines?
Blue Ribbon Award for The Plain and Simple. Ah, so refreshing after running the Trump News Gauntlet.
So my Netflix discs will continue to arrive in the mail after all?
Yet another reason why I’m dropping Netflix.
You know, I believe I read some article a while ago, about how to detect proxies using packet timing. I think it was an article about some Defcon thing.
Anyway, if your TCP send / ack timing is very different from ping to the IP then you know you’re dealing with a proxy. Or you can be reasonably sure, anyway. Nothing is certain.
zlynx,
Interesting, I’d certainly enjoy seeing that if you have a link for it. I’d be concerned about false positives using this approach, but maybe you are right. It wouldn’t work with a VPN/ip-level redirection though since none of the TCP signaling information would be generated by the proxy itself.
I suspect what they’re actually going to do is to use one or more DNSRBL for public SOCKS/HTTP proxies.
http://whatismyipaddress.com/blacklist/sorbs
Anyone who’s setup a mail server will likely know how this all works. Blacklisting in the context of unsolicited email makes sense, but for netflix to use this against paying customers seems pretty hash. It will only encourage them to seek illegal sources of the content, which to be perfectly blunt is exactly what both netflix and the studios deserve if they do this. Hell, I’d even be in favor of a law that says if you discriminate against customers who want to buy your services, you loose the right to prosecute them over copyright infringement.
As a workaround, anyone who’s technically inclined can get a private VPN or host in the US to redirect traffic. What I’m curious about is the exact scope of what netflix means by “proxy”. What do they intend to do with people running tor nodes? Will they be blocked from using netflix legitimately because they also run tor at home? And what about IPv6 gateway services? These are used by both US and foreign users. Blocking these services would be disruptive to US users of those services.
This whole proxy thing aside, does anyone know what happens when a US customer takes their device on vacation (ie to keep the kids entertained during travel)? Does netflix block your normal content then?
Edited 2016-01-16 04:06 UTC
If Netflix is available in the country that you are in, you will see their “locally” available content, i.e. you might no longer be able to see shows you saw in your home country before.
If Netflix is not available in the country that you are in, you’ll have no content at all.
Netflix is only worth it for their homegrown shows. Their content is pretty pants otherwise, most definitively not worth the trouble of proxying and whatnot.
Call me an old fart (which I am) but … why can’t Netflix users just use Netflix without proxies, as it is intended to be used?
Guess I never gave much thought to experiencing entertainment which others created and spent time and money on, without … paying for it.
I get paid for the work I do, so why shouldn’t I pay others for the work they do, which I use?
Due to the fact that it has to license a lot of content, Netflix has different libraries for different countries; the US version of Netflix has 4 times as much content as the UK version of Netflix, for example. So some people use proxies to access a larger, or different, library of content from what they can access in their local version of Netflix.
can-eh-bus,
The proxies aren’t being used to avoid paying, but rather they are being used by paying subscribers to avoid regional restrictions. Their *only* offense is where they live.
We actually assume the US is the privileged market, but for some it can actually hurt us both ways since I can’t get French content here in the US through netflix or the local cable company. I would feel completely justified in using a proxy to get the French dub of a movie available here in English, for example.
Edited 2016-01-16 22:22 UTC
Netflix is a paid subscription service. Netflix is asking that its paying customers, some of whom live under oppressive regimes, to expose their home network for the sake of watching content which might not even be legal to watch in that country.
The hypocrisy is where Netflix was all in favor of net neutrality when ISPs wanted more money to prioritize video traffic. Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source. Now Netflix is denying its paying customers access to content based on the source.
If this really happens, I will drop Netflix. Looks like the market responded as well; Netflix stock dropped 3% since the announcement, and that’s before they start bleeding customers.