Two articles crossed my inbox yesterday on the issue of international customers using VPNs to watch American Netflix. One article came via GigaOM, and was included in today’s morning links. The other came via the Beloved coming home and gleefully announcing to me that he read, in the Paywalled Toronto Star, that Netflix would be arresting all the cheaters.
That turned out to be not so true—the Beloved succumbed to the hyperbole, and a closer read of the story had the usual stuff in there about how you are not supposed to do that, but there isn’t much Netflix can do other than try to circumvent your circumventions on a technical level, since it is not ‘illegal’ so much as a ‘terms of use violation.’ From the GigaOM story:
“Hunt added that Netflix has long used “the same VPN block list that everyone else uses,” and that it can only do so much to prevent users from accessing the service from abroad.”
In the conversation which ensued, I shared my feeling with the Beloved that the content providers might solve this problem by doing more to make their media properties available. Yes, they have the legal ‘right’ not to; they are allowed to license whatever they want to whomever they want, and I am not refuting that. But I pay for my Netflix service, and it seems foolish to me that content providers would want to willingly turn away a customer who wants to pay them for something. It’s not like they are selling it themselves, in many cases. There is no Canadian competitor to Netflix who is licensing all of the currently America-only stuff. So what’s the problem? Why are they holding this stuff back from the Canadian market? If people want it, and will pay, why not take their money?
The Beloved, for his part, suggested that even I am missing the boat a little. The issue is not that there are two choices, and people are choosing one and not the other. The issue is that people are choosing the unspoken third choice and throwing in the towel altogether. He likened it to a situation where a person is waiting in line at the bank and there are two teller kiosks which are open. They start arguing about which of them will serve the customer. And while the customer is waiting for them to finish hashing it out, he goes online on his phone and buys something, so he no longer has the money to deposit.
In other words, the real question isn’t ‘who will provide this or that specific packet of content to this or that specific market.’ The issue is that while they are hashing out their antiquated territorial-restrictions-based model for a movie or a TV show, the customer has decided he would rather not watch TV after all, and has downloaded Plants vs Zombies, or eBooks, or a live stream of the latest Phish concert…
There is often the (illegal) option of torrenting as well. Pretending that people that use VPNs to circumvent geo-restrictions don’t see this as a possibility is foolhardy.
On another approach, are any Canadian ISPs offering the equivalent of NZ ‘Global Mode’?
https://www.slingshot.co.nz/global-mode/overview