I realise that they're probably just covering their asses, but it really sucks to live in a small country that none of the distributors care about.
The Estonian netflix catalogue is on the order of 500? titles... ridiculous compared to the US catalogue. In the US you have "watch on amazon prime" buttons in imdb. In Estonia, no such luck.
Essentially, there is no legal way at all to watch the vast majority of movies here. And people wonder why piracy happens a lot around here...
Same here in Cyprus, the catalog is pathetic. I am using an unblocker for now once it stops working Netflix will become useless to me and I'll cancel. We're too small to make a difference to Netflix even if all subscribers stop paying we're just a rounding error in their accounts. The change will come from larger markets and from EU who is trying to kill geo blocking within Europe.
Content sources typically charge per region. The more the subscribers per region, the better is Netflix chances of broadening the catalogue in that region. It is a tough problem that has several facets. Prime move, capturing a subscription base, marketing, campaigning, trials, licenses, sourcing, regional law compliance (nudity/violence etc.), infrastructure, etc.
Am not saying as a consumer you are wrong. But a perspective from the other side at least partially covers the why.
I'm frustrated that Netflix is cracking down in this way. And yet, I can't say that I'm surprised. They are trying to amass as much content as possible, and doing so means that Netflix has to demonstrate that they're trying to enforce the regional exclusivity agreements.
For me, as a consumer who has been using an unblocking system for more than two years, and who would like to continue to see Amazon's content, I'm rooting for the unblockers.
But I wonder whether the cat-and-mouse game between Netflix and unblocking services is almost inevitably in Netflix's favor, at least as things currently run.
Which leads me to ask if a "cloud VPN appliance" SaaS could work, technically and/or as a business: Customers would click to indicate the country where they want to have a VPN server hosted. The appliance would use Digital Ocean, or some other hosting facility with cheap machines that can be created and destroyed via an API. For a $5/month DO server, charge $15/month. Have the appliance update its software, and/or relocate to another hosting system or IP address, as Netflix detects and blocks that machine.
I have to assume that it would be harder for Netflix to block thousands of such privately used VPN machines than blocks of AWS servers being used for such services.
But yeah, it's unfortunate that because of agreements between movie studios and distribution firms in each country, individuals have to play these sorts of games.
>But I wonder whether the cat-and-mouse game between Netflix and unblocking services is almost inevitably in Netflix's favor, at least as things currently run.
I don't see how Netflix or their content producers come out ahead by driving whole national markets to torrent sites. Once you force people onto a pirate distribution channel they're not going to pay even for the titles they could obtain legally.
Others have reported Netflix blocking IP ranges owned by cloud hosting companies. So this solution might not work. What if it was a peer-to-peer service? Whereby the ultimate exit point was the home internet connection of another subscriber?
The ability for and dedication to self sabotage is really astonishing with these old media companies (in this case channeled through Netflix). The sad thing is this affects only people who are still somehow determined to actually buy their content instead of straight-up pirating it.
It is likely a requirement of some contract they have with content producers, who have Netflix over a barrel. I can't see them just deciding to do this all on their own.
We'll start to see VPN companies setup auto-rotating IPv6-only networks registered to residential addresses and pseudonyms shortly (if they haven't already) with 2-3 customers per/IP.
VPN's will cater and advertise as "for Netflix" and then the "fight" will shift to copyright takedowns and proxy-lawsuits.
If Netflix continues to crack down and push harder you'll see a lot more false positives/user complaints about being blocked than we currently do.
I sincerely hope they start using their weight to push back.
> A residential vpn doesn’t use a standard data center like traditional vpn services do. A residential vpn service uses the same local internet service providers that offer dsl and cable to home users. This type of service is very unusual in the vpn arena because normal providers of vpn services do not offer this type of service. It is generally unheard of in the vpn world.
> IAPS Security Services, LLC. has gone outside the normal channels and has contracted directly with residential internet service providers to make this type of service possible.
This is pretty much the situation in China with VPNs and GFW. Some providers will specialize in providing ways to get around the locks. They will be able to charge extra for it too and people will pay. Because $7.99 + say $4.99 for the VPN per month is still better than going back to cable. Fortunately, Netflix doesn't appear to be targeting users in China that much. I've use Netflix daily only seen the "something is wrong you appear to be using a proxy message" twice so far. I just switched servers and everything was all right.
While everyone's busy blaming Netflix, the reality is they're just covering their own asses, complying with the content laws of the jurisdictions in which they're operating.
This is not really about compliance. They license their content from their media partners and these licensing agreements state in which territories they are allowed to use the licensed content. Their media partners are contractually requiring them to take steps to block the usage of their content outside the licensed territories.
Keep in mind that the party who has licensed Netflix a production to be used in e.g. the US might not even have the rights to the same production in e.g. the UK.
Out of sheer curiosity: Does anyone know/suspect if Netflix is actually using techniques in addition to blocking IPs of known proxy/vpn/unblocking services? Because I would imagine that is a bit like fighting a hydra, very labor- and cost-intensive, yet they are getting excellent results (apparently, still, the sample of people who complain and thus get media coverage is pretty biased).
Is anyone with a 'homegrown' vpn tunnel experiencing issues? I could also think of a solution involving cookies/fingerprinting that detects if someone's geolocation moves around quicker and more often than is physically possible.
I'm sure the technology is under tight wraps, and I'm also sure that other companies will be dying to license this from Netflix if they get it right, even if it's just a lengthy list of IPs (e.g. the BBC for iPlayer).
The Netflix team is known for using reproducible automation in all their efforts. They have a significant "big data" team that can use and setup automatic classification using hundreds of available data points to classify users who are violating their ToS versus those who aren't. Netflix doesn't do anything that is labor or cost intensive: they have all of this automated.
Even approaching this from a naive set of data points is cheap: It isn't particularly hard to classify IP addresses between cable modem blocks and those for VPS/VPN providers. Geolocation on a country level is relatively reliable. Also it's pretty easy to detect OpenVPN users on layers 2 and 3.:
There was a report on the NANOG list of customers being flagged for VPN use while using an account in two countries simultaneously, but if one used another account from those IPs, there is no issue.
I suspect this type of analysis plays a bigger role than most people think.
i.e A user jumping back and forth between US and Australian Netflix - faster than 'physically' possible, would act as a VPN flag.
Personally I had to change the end point of my home made VPN, but have not had any issues since. As a precaution, I have avoided region jumping. If I did, I would try and leave a realistic gap between any access.
Yes, they are using some kind of heuristics in addition to ip ban lists. I was using an openvpn instance on a private US server which was working fine until a couple weeks ago when I didn't notice the VPN connection dropped and accidentally reconnected from 2 different countries quickly. It banned me immediately.
The unblocker services use a DNS server to present you as being from another location, Netflix is only making it hard to pirate without incurring the bandwidth costs too - we were only paying $2/month to adfreetime.com for 3 people.
Netflix "gets it" very well, they have to tiptoe between satisfying their content providers with plausible-enough looking action and at the same time trying to not alienate their end-users. They probably know the exact numbers of their chosen paths and have chosen optimally (for now).
I seriously don't understand what the movie companies are trying to do. People who think going to the cinema is special and add something to the experience already go to the cinema. For the rest of us, we see it on Netflix or Amazon or whatever or we will either not see it or pirate it.
Same here. The catalog in Canada isn't worth it. Once the proxy companies lose, I'll cancel Netflix. No I will not go to the cinema, I will not buy the DVDs. The media company will just lose the revenue from me and people similar to me for those movies.
I live in France and have been subscribed to Netflix for many years, with a fake US address (but a French debit card). I access Netflix over a VPN provider.
When Netflix arrived in France I was able to access Netflix without VPN from France, with a different catalog, but retained the access to the US catalog via VPN (without doing anything else: same account, same browser, same session even).
I have seen no change since this move was announced, and therefore doubt if it's real??
>I have seen no change since this move was announced, and therefore doubt if it's real??
Are you doubting that they're blocking users who access through a VPN? They certainly are. Maybe your VPN hasn't been blacklisted, but that's not to say it won't be in the future.
I just buy DVDs/Blue-rays. That way I own the medium, can watch it any time at superior quality (video + audio) and get some bonus content (behind the scene, interviews, deleted scenes, etc.) too. And I watch amateur short clips on YouTube. It's amazing how short sighted average joes are.
While I've not been using VPNs for this, and can see why this sucks for a lot of consumers, I can't really feel sad for any unblocking companies that die over this. They were providing a service that were strictly against the TOS of Netflix, akin to creating cheats/bots for online video games. They had to know that this could come to an end.
It's also very clear that Netflix didn't want this, and that it was forced to make this move. (Couldn't find the exact quote, but newspapers have reported this).
The availability is quite sad now, though. Looking at uNoGS[0] and gk2[1], you can quickly see the disparity. USA pays $7.99 to access 5649 videos. Germany pays ~$9 to access 1412. Scandinavia (little to no dubbing) pays ~$9.5 to access 2038 videos. Most countries have half the content of the US, but pay above US prices on average.
So for some time now, EU has basically been subsidizing Netflix for America and Friends. I really hope that our licensing laws will get straightened out soon, although I can't see the movie business wanting to get rid of the middle-man businesses anytime soon. It generates a huge amount of cash.
As much as this looks like a result of Netflix attempting to cover their asses with content licensing, the story going around is that this is actually a result of Netflix's freedom and responsibility doctrine. Apparently some asshole engineer internally said he'd be willing to build a proxy blocker, but only if he could do it right.
I cancelled my netflix account last week because they cracked down on both my VPN providers. In my country, we legally get around 12-13% of the shows available on the US Netflix.
Paying customers get shafted, and the mega-corps wonder why piracy is rampant.
So netflix has gone full circle, people want to move away from cable companies because price/content is crap. Netflix is killing off region hopping thus making price/content crap. Long live piracy
Internet-based companies want borders when it benefits them, and want the network to be without borders or geographic locations when that benefits them.
[+] [-] terryf|10 years ago|reply
The Estonian netflix catalogue is on the order of 500? titles... ridiculous compared to the US catalogue. In the US you have "watch on amazon prime" buttons in imdb. In Estonia, no such luck.
Essentially, there is no legal way at all to watch the vast majority of movies here. And people wonder why piracy happens a lot around here...
[+] [-] kyriakos|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sireat|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cm2187|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ehnto|10 years ago|reply
Just copy and paste your contracts, replace America with Australia and away you go. /s
[+] [-] sound_of_basker|10 years ago|reply
Am not saying as a consumer you are wrong. But a perspective from the other side at least partially covers the why.
[+] [-] AnAfrican|10 years ago|reply
For smaller and poorer markets, there are plenty of content with no distribution deal in place.
So Netflix could be the only way to make any money in those markets.
Those catalogues will grow bigger. Possibly bigger than the catalogues in Big market where there is competition.
[+] [-] elcct|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giarc|10 years ago|reply
You could buy them.
[+] [-] reuven|10 years ago|reply
For me, as a consumer who has been using an unblocking system for more than two years, and who would like to continue to see Amazon's content, I'm rooting for the unblockers.
But I wonder whether the cat-and-mouse game between Netflix and unblocking services is almost inevitably in Netflix's favor, at least as things currently run.
Which leads me to ask if a "cloud VPN appliance" SaaS could work, technically and/or as a business: Customers would click to indicate the country where they want to have a VPN server hosted. The appliance would use Digital Ocean, or some other hosting facility with cheap machines that can be created and destroyed via an API. For a $5/month DO server, charge $15/month. Have the appliance update its software, and/or relocate to another hosting system or IP address, as Netflix detects and blocks that machine.
I have to assume that it would be harder for Netflix to block thousands of such privately used VPN machines than blocks of AWS servers being used for such services.
But yeah, it's unfortunate that because of agreements between movie studios and distribution firms in each country, individuals have to play these sorts of games.
[+] [-] gozur88|10 years ago|reply
I don't see how Netflix or their content producers come out ahead by driving whole national markets to torrent sites. Once you force people onto a pirate distribution channel they're not going to pay even for the titles they could obtain legally.
[+] [-] colinbartlett|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Udo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shmerl|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] e40|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mandatum|10 years ago|reply
We'll start to see VPN companies setup auto-rotating IPv6-only networks registered to residential addresses and pseudonyms shortly (if they haven't already) with 2-3 customers per/IP.
VPN's will cater and advertise as "for Netflix" and then the "fight" will shift to copyright takedowns and proxy-lawsuits.
If Netflix continues to crack down and push harder you'll see a lot more false positives/user complaints about being blocked than we currently do.
I sincerely hope they start using their weight to push back.
[+] [-] mirimir|10 years ago|reply
> IAPS Security Services, LLC. has gone outside the normal channels and has contracted directly with residential internet service providers to make this type of service possible.
https://www.intl-alliance.com/store/cart.php?gid=15
I have no idea whether or not this is legitimate. Maybe this is another Hola scam. Or worse.
Edit: See https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/27897/vpn-service-that... for amusing discussion.
Edit2: OK, I get it. It's whois games. See http://www.hacker10.com/other-computing/review-scam-vpn-prov... Easy to detect :(
[+] [-] sdm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mikeb85|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrJokepu|10 years ago|reply
Keep in mind that the party who has licensed Netflix a production to be used in e.g. the US might not even have the rights to the same production in e.g. the UK.
[+] [-] edandersen|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andor|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamlolz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lauritz|10 years ago|reply
Is anyone with a 'homegrown' vpn tunnel experiencing issues? I could also think of a solution involving cookies/fingerprinting that detects if someone's geolocation moves around quicker and more often than is physically possible.
I'm sure the technology is under tight wraps, and I'm also sure that other companies will be dying to license this from Netflix if they get it right, even if it's just a lengthy list of IPs (e.g. the BBC for iPlayer).
[+] [-] tshtf|10 years ago|reply
The Netflix team is known for using reproducible automation in all their efforts. They have a significant "big data" team that can use and setup automatic classification using hundreds of available data points to classify users who are violating their ToS versus those who aren't. Netflix doesn't do anything that is labor or cost intensive: they have all of this automated.
Even approaching this from a naive set of data points is cheap: It isn't particularly hard to classify IP addresses between cable modem blocks and those for VPS/VPN providers. Geolocation on a country level is relatively reliable. Also it's pretty easy to detect OpenVPN users on layers 2 and 3.:
https://medium.com/@ValdikSS/detecting-vpn-and-its-configura...
[+] [-] mcbridematt|10 years ago|reply
http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2016-January/083833...
I suspect this type of analysis plays a bigger role than most people think.
i.e A user jumping back and forth between US and Australian Netflix - faster than 'physically' possible, would act as a VPN flag.
Personally I had to change the end point of my home made VPN, but have not had any issues since. As a precaution, I have avoided region jumping. If I did, I would try and leave a realistic gap between any access.
[+] [-] Element_|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheez|10 years ago|reply
Customer has an address in country X, they're accessing from country X and Y in the same day. Probably block.
[+] [-] benologist|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SeanDav|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erkkie|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intrasight|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pstrateman|10 years ago|reply
They blocked a VPS which is used by me and only me entirely from within the US.
[+] [-] dorfsmay|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicolas_t|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dorfsmay|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bambax|10 years ago|reply
When Netflix arrived in France I was able to access Netflix without VPN from France, with a different catalog, but retained the access to the US catalog via VPN (without doing anything else: same account, same browser, same session even).
I have seen no change since this move was announced, and therefore doubt if it's real??
[+] [-] cr1895|10 years ago|reply
Are you doubting that they're blocking users who access through a VPN? They certainly are. Maybe your VPN hasn't been blacklisted, but that's not to say it won't be in the future.
[+] [-] jawngee|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frik|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unbelievr|10 years ago|reply
It's also very clear that Netflix didn't want this, and that it was forced to make this move. (Couldn't find the exact quote, but newspapers have reported this).
The availability is quite sad now, though. Looking at uNoGS[0] and gk2[1], you can quickly see the disparity. USA pays $7.99 to access 5649 videos. Germany pays ~$9 to access 1412. Scandinavia (little to no dubbing) pays ~$9.5 to access 2038 videos. Most countries have half the content of the US, but pay above US prices on average.
So for some time now, EU has basically been subsidizing Netflix for America and Friends. I really hope that our licensing laws will get straightened out soon, although I can't see the movie business wanting to get rid of the middle-man businesses anytime soon. It generates a huge amount of cash.
[0] http://unogs.com/countrydetail/
[1] http://gk2.sk/netflix-content-by-country/
[+] [-] yeldarb|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fr222|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] korginator|10 years ago|reply
Paying customers get shafted, and the mega-corps wonder why piracy is rampant.
[+] [-] nwmcsween|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dewiz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kazinator|10 years ago|reply