I fully agree, but - and someone please correct me if I'm wrong - I was under the impression that this is essentially out of Netflix's hands. It just depends on the terms of the license that's granted, right? And/or is it a scenario where in some cases Netflix could perhaps pay more to get wider/global airing rights, but they can't justify the additional cost based on the viewership numbers they expect for that piece of content in those additional countries/regions?
By that same token, I wouldn't be surprised if lawyers have been breathing down their neck for years trying to pressure them to crack down on region lock-bypassing VPNs, and perhaps even threatening legal action against them.
(Of course, that's not justification for blocking residential IP addresses as VPNs when there are non-VPN users behind those IP addresses. Just wanted to point out that the blocking policy is probably something they have to do rather than something they want to do.)
No, it's not out of Netflix's hands. It's just the usual price negotiation. Netflix doesn't want to license content for global broadcast, which would be more expensive. So, they license it regionally. So, Netflix is as much at fault here as the rights holders.
Yeah, it's definitely not entirely out of their hands. My reason for saying "essentially out of their hands": if their analysis shows that, say, they would almost certainly just be bleeding huge amounts of money by purchasing rights for regions where almost no one would ever watch it, I think it's hard to fault them for that decision.
I'm guessing it's not a matter of nickel-and-diming, but it just really being very unwise or totally infeasible to get global rights for everything. Of course, I'm just blindly speculating and I have no clue and maybe they really are being cheap in some way.
And I think it's quite possible the VPN stuff really is out of their hands. (From a policy perspective, not an implementation perspective. Obviously the implementation is entirely on them, and the false positive bans are their fault.)
From a business perspective, I would think they'd be incentivized to allow them and not dedicate resources to trying to block them. But lots of podcasts I watch have a bunch of ad segments for different VPNs, where the main selling point is typically "watch stuff for other regions on Netflix", and I'm guessing the companies they're licensing from are increasingly seeing this loophole as basically a form of piracy.
Why can't Netflix just allow people to buy another subscription for a new country? I wouldn't mind paying extra to unlock additional content from another country.
Yep. Paramount announced Paramount Plus in New Zealand and Australia. Then the failing pay TV monopoly paid up a bunch of money to make the content exclusive to their terrible 720p streaming service. No Paramount Plus for New Zealand!
To add insult to injury, they don't even bother showing the movies and shows that they lock up this way. It's just about exercising monopoly power.
Ok, but why can't netflix apply the geo restrictions based on the payment and not the incoming IP address? I'd prefer to use a VPN for all of my traffic, and I'll gladly stay region locked to the region I reside in. But forcing me to go outside the VPN is something I'd rather not do.
True, that's a good point. Has it been confirmed that they're just blanket-blocking VPN IPs rather than specifically blocking cases of a customer's region shifting/not matching their registration details?
If the VPN node's public IP matches the country in the subscriber's registration details, then it seems pretty unfair that they'd still restrict their account when accessed from that VPN IP. But I suppose from a technical standpoint it's probably far simpler for them to just find VPN IPs/subnets, add them to a database, and restrict content for any account accessed from any of those IPs, regardless of the account, IP, or content regions.
The copyright applies to a specific viewing of a movie, not the purchase of a license. They can't enable their users to break license or they'll loose their right to distribute content.
But Netflix also has an agreement with whoever owns distribution rights in the other country though... that's why the VPN trick works. Just let me pay extra for the other country, what would be the problem there?
Your suggestion makes "common sense" but probably would cause legal issues.
Suppose you are Canadian. Netflix has permission to sell Americans "Media Package A" and Canadians "Media Package B". They don't have permission to sell Canadians "Media Package A". You are saying "just let me buy both" but Netflix does not have permission from media companies to sell you both.
I would assume the content owners are demanding the Netflix to stop the VPN trick. I would assume the distributors in other countries are telling content owners they will not pay a certain price if Netflix is allowing people to use VPNs.
Because in 2021, culture is global. Your examples also don't really make any analogous sense, at all. You are free to learn whichever language you want. Under the corporate geofencing intellectual property regime, you are not free to watch whatever films you want. That is the issue.
To a recent years, lot of films where banned where I live and watching any of them is a felony! So location indeed affect what you're allowed to watch regardless of whether it's under geofencing intellectual property or another thing.
To be clear I wish I lived in a world where I can legally watch everything without a hassle. But there's no such world like that regardless of how much we want to exist. The same way there's no such world where we get paid equally ( doing the same work obviously) because we're living in different locations/countries!
We are not talking about films which are specifically banned, or content which is generally illegal. We are talking about content that is 'normative' and generally legal around the world, but is artificially restricted based on geofencing.
For example, attempting to watch a film that is legal both in Country A and Country B, but not being able to because of the region you are logging into Netflix from.
There is no intellectual consistency in what you're saying, at all. Freedom of Speech is only an actual guarantee (at least in text) in one country. And the electrons/bits in the wire obey physics like every other item the GP mentioned and as a result, are subject to the same political and physical forces that reflect in their regionally relative price.
What they are saying has nothing to do with rules or regulations. If the content of Barney is legal to watch in Canada, and the USA, there is no reason the show shouldn't be available to watch in both countries
Last I checked Apple TV doesn't even list the languages their subtitles are available in before renting/buying movies. Frankly this is just plain idiotic. I rented Parasite, but my girlfriend couldn't really watch it, since she doesn't speak Swedish. It's such an obvious piece of information they should provide. (And even if it's not obvious, I did email them letting them know. Somehow I doubt my feedback will come to use.)
If you live in the US, going on vacation to Europe doesn't affect how much salary you get paid or what language you speak, but it does impact the content you are allowed to watch.
Yes, that’s true if you only move within the EU. Has been the case for a few years now, also with other streaming services, due to new EU portability laws.
It's so silly. They could at least make it clear - I forgot about it on holiday in Canada, watched a couple of episodes of a series (enough to get into it), returned home to the UK and it wasn't there. I didn't realise until then that would happen; I hadn't even remembered that it was a possibility.
Digital goods are still considered property so its far from ridiculous, but we can re-evaluate and change that via legislation if we wish to.
Re: Regional Pricing - Its no different than product prices changing depending on the country. Import/custom taxes/duties, trade treaties, etc, still are a thing in today's world. Again, not ridiculous, but changeable if people want to.
This view doesn't make sense to me. Have you ever created something through effort/cost? Is it not yours if it can only be displayed on a monitor? Most of us here have jobs/products that have the same limitation.
Okay, I accept that this is your position. I don't agree that it is ridiculous as its the basis of our entire digital economy including software licensing and everything else. No point arguing over it, so I'll just let you have the last word. Have a nice day.
