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After Netflix crackdown on border-hopping, Canadians ready to return to piracy

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Re: After Netflix crackdown on border-hopping, Canadians ready to return to piracy

#51
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can run your own VPN server on a VPS, but Netflix is (rumored to be) blocking the IP address ranges of DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS, etc.

I tried proxying through a server in Germany (in a big, well known hosting provider) and I got the same message, both with ssh -D and pptpd. So they're either reading signatures left on the packets by various VPN / proxy technologies (fragmentation and other obscure metrics), or they're blocking the IP ranges of major hosting providers, or both.

They don't use anything sophisticated, it's just IP range blacklist. Hint: try different VPS provider, there's plenty out there...

Re: After Netflix crackdown on border-hopping, Canadians ready to return to piracy

#52
What exactly does Netflix stand to gain from making it harder for its non-american subscribers to VPN the geoblocked content?

Surely they must have predicted a substantial drop in subscription rates as soon as people realize they can't watch the good stuff.

It just seems like international-marketshare suicide.

Re: After Netflix crackdown on border-hopping, Canadians ready to return to piracy

#53
post #12
post #5

The same is happening here in Australia talking to people.

Yes I'm cancelling my account as I haven't used it in 2 months.(since the vpn I used was blocked)

Getflix still mostly works. They added new proxies but many of the old ones don't work.

Re: After Netflix crackdown on border-hopping, Canadians ready to return to piracy

#54
post #52

What exactly does Netflix stand to gain from making it harder for its non-american subscribers to VPN the geoblocked content? Surely they must have predicted a substantial drop in subscription rates as soon as people realize they can't watch the good stuff. It just seems like international-marketshare suicide.

My guess is that Netflix has now positioned themselves as the first global 'television' network.

They hopefully have enough power and leverage to stop the content producers from stupidly restricting access via region, but they're not able to do this effectively if users can easily bypass the restrictions.

If it doesn't work out then at least they'll get a global audience for their own content and the rest will go back to piracy.

Re: After Netflix crackdown on border-hopping, Canadians ready to return to piracy

#55
post #52

What exactly does Netflix stand to gain from making it harder for its non-american subscribers to VPN the geoblocked content? Surely they must have predicted a substantial drop in subscription rates as soon as people realize they can't watch the good stuff. It just seems like international-marketshare suicide.

I suspect they were given ultimatum(s) from the content copyright holders, and decided to keep the content but lose the international viewers. Then this can be used as leverage in the ongoing negotiations.

Re: After Netflix crackdown on border-hopping, Canadians ready to return to piracy

#56
post #52

What exactly does Netflix stand to gain from making it harder for its non-american subscribers to VPN the geoblocked content? Surely they must have predicted a substantial drop in subscription rates as soon as people realize they can't watch the good stuff. It just seems like international-marketshare suicide.

In order to make content companies cooperate with them on international expansion, i assume content creators demanded this, so they could still play the old game of selling content differently in different places - with a simple reasoning - more control = more revenues.

Re: After Netflix crackdown on border-hopping, Canadians ready to return to piracy

#57
post #26

Same issue in Singapore. The Netflix library available here doesn't even contain the latest season of House of Cards – and it's a bloody Netflix production. I would love to pay someone for timely content, but now that Netflix is blocking vpn access there is literally nobody to pay. It's complete madness.

Netflix doesn't own house of cards actually, it exclusive rights to it in some countries in others it doesn't.

Since it is a production of them, is seems utterly moronic to remove one of the main reasons people would join their services in the first place. Many non-us customers joined, just to cancel the account right after they realized that they had no access to the good content. In some cases this is not the fault of netflix, but that of 19th century copyright laws. I cannot blame them, when other services had the rights prior to them...

But 'House of Cards' is a Netflix production, and this doesn't apply here. They would have done themselfs a favour by not selling the rights to this content to the highest bidder. Especially since their ads suggest access to 'House of Cards'.

Re: After Netflix crackdown on border-hopping, Canadians ready to return to piracy

#58
post #41

We're in Canada and have been cable cutters for almost five years now. We've gotten by on Netflix US and YouTube with the occasional pirated streaming site, but we're barely ever using Netflix anymore. We've turned to Kodi. We don't want to pirate, but it's hard to make a compelling argument against it when you get everything you want even easier than torrents. Add to that the abusive monopolies of Shaw and Bell, who…

What's wrong with Bell/Saw/Rogers having their own streaming services? I've found Bell's Crave TV to be pretty good, Shomi not as much.

Crave TV has great content, but they have been very frustrating for me technically. Random drops in the stream, session cookies getting corrupted (they only recently allow password changes from their site).

Re: After Netflix crackdown on border-hopping, Canadians ready to return to piracy

#59
I still can access netflix through the VPN I use. As long as I still can do that, I will keep my account. The second they block it, I'll cancel my netflix account and will go back to resorting to piracy. If movie studios don't want my money then so be it, I'll find better use for it.

EDIT: And I say this as someone who spends roughly $100/month supporting artists I like on Patreon and Kickstarter, so I'm not opposed to paying for content. I'm just opposed to big media conglomerates screwing me.

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