More unblocking companies give up their fight against Netflix

midian182

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Thanks to licensing agreements, the amount of content available in Netflix’s library can vary enormously in each of the 190+ countries where it’s available. As such, VPNs were a popular method of circumventing the streaming site’s geoblocking technology, but earlier this year the company clamped on this practice. Now, it looks as if Netflix has won its war against the unblockers.

Back in January, it was reported that Netflix was updating its proxy detection techniques to ensure subscribers only have access to location-specific content. The unblocking firms weren’t worried; they claimed cycling IP addresses would allow them to bypass the blocks.

But a few weeks later, the first large VPN service was affected. Australian company uFlix discovered that some of its users could no longer access Netflix. It said that a fix was coming soon, but, as reported by CBC, uFlix announced in a recent blog post that it has given up the fight.

“As of today we are going to stop supporting Netflix as an unblocked channel. Unfortunately every time we set up a new network or find a workaround it is getting blocked within hours.” The post reads. “Over the last 7 months we have put in a great amount of time, money and energy into keeping Netflix unblocked. We have usually been up and running within a couple of hours of each ban. However, this has greatly drained our resources and our time.”

Uflix isn’t the only service to throw in the towel – most of the other unblockers have quietly decided to stop trying to evade Netflix’s geoblocks, as more customers complain they can no longer watch the streaming site.

Popular VPN TorGuard had assured customers that the crackdown wouldn’t affect them. But there is no mention of Netflix on TorGuard’s website, and its shared Netflix server was taken offline four months ago.

Some VPN services say they are working on new ways to bypass the geoblocking technology, but it seems as soon as a solution is found, Netflix identifies and blocks it. The company has said it would like to make all its content available on a global scale, but the chances of that ever happening seem slim.

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Netflix should be pushing to get rid of geoblocking. there is 0 good reason for it.
for them maybe, but for the people who hold the licences to the movie it's different.
Those who hold the licenses are loosing money by refusing other regions to buy it. Those regions then turn to pirating the content instead to watch it. The whole concept of region locking is a money wasting game.
 
Just another good reason to dump Netflix .....
Netflix should be pushing to get rid of geoblocking. there is 0 good reason for it.
Enough said:
for them maybe, but for the people who hold the licences to the movie it's different.
Netflix doesn't own the content, it comes through agreements they make with the producing companies and they say where it can and can not be streamed, and this doesn't come for:
Those who hold the licenses are loosing money by refusing other regions to buy it. Those regions then turn to pirating the content instead to watch it. The whole concept of region locking is a money wasting game.
No they are not doing it because they like to not earn money, thinking this so simplistic "solution" is kind of dumb, the whole deal for the producers is to make money. The issue comes with the laws that apply to different countries, the requirements they have to comply in order to stream the shows in those countries, and whatever the main point being, it's never as simple as you think.
 
With netflix DUMPING a bunch of content, and, going to more netflix produced content, there may be a day when the MPAA, studios etc will BEG services like netflix to show their movies.
Personally, there isn't anything on Netflix I care to watch, that I haven't seen before. The only difference is with Netflix, there are no commercials, but if something comes on "normal" tv I want to watch, I just PVR it and skip the commercials anyway.
 
Netflix should be pushing to get rid of geoblocking. there is 0 good reason for it.

So, there's no good reason to block people from other regions when their licensing agreements require them to do so, they stream HD content to a **** ton of subscribers and people in other countries weren't a part of their plan for available bandwidth?

Well, from YOUR point of view, there's no reason to block it, but from a practical business point of view, people outside of the US aren't allowed to use up the bandwidth reserved for their paying customers.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

More on the content owners themselves than Netflix, though.

Perhaps... end result is the same though. The industry doesn't seem to understand the priorities of the consumer. Being convenience and reasonable pricing. If you don't provide either of those the consumer will seek other options. For content not offered in their country, a lot of them might seek their desired content via torrent networks.
 
So this is great, I originally subscribed to Netflix to watch stuff, that stuff would randomly be removed but I found out that other countries had it so I subscribed to a VPN service. Now I can't use my VPN to watch whatever I want on Netflix so I can cancel it and just use my VPN to Torrent instead... Well on the bright side the VPN cost half of what Netflix does and it allows me a wider array of content anyway. But now I'll need to go back to buying boat loads of hard drives I suppose...
 
But now I'll need to go back to buying boat loads of hard drives I suppose...
This reminded me of the initial days of mp3s and people having way more than they could listen in a lifetime, that need to have them all though
 
Heh, can't blame them. I "gave up" on subscribing to Netflix at all due to the garbage content they offer in Spain compared to the US. So yeah block away, I won't give them a cent of my money.
 
Netflix should be pushing to get rid of geoblocking. there is 0 good reason for it.
for them maybe, but for the people who hold the licences to the movie it's different.
Those who hold the licenses are loosing money by refusing other regions to buy it. Those regions then turn to pirating the content instead to watch it. The whole concept of region locking is a money wasting game.
It is the same argument for all methods to limit access to content in any form including DVD/Blu-ray/UHD Blu-ray (add your favorite medium here - ad nauseum). If there were a UHD Blu-ray PC solution at this point, it would be in my HTPC, and I would be buying UHD Blu-ray disks. Yet content providers do not seem to care that they are losing sales because of their draconian policies. They would, or so it seems, rather shoot their feet off than take in money from the additional sales.
 
It is the same argument for all methods to limit access to content in any form including DVD/Blu-ray/UHD Blu-ray (add your favorite medium here - ad nauseum). If there were a UHD Blu-ray PC solution at this point, it would be in my HTPC, and I would be buying UHD Blu-ray disks. Yet content providers do not seem to care that they are losing sales because of their draconian policies. They would, or so it seems, rather shoot their feet off than take in money from the additional sales.
are you sure they are losing money? they might not get your money, but they will definitely get money from somewhere else.
licence deals are more lucrative than you think.
 
Netflix should be pushing to get rid of geoblocking. there is 0 good reason for it.

Here's a good reason.... money. If all Netflix content was available to the whole world instead of just where it was licensed that would mean hundreds of times more available viewers to the same content. That would mean the content providers would want WAY more money for their content because so many more people can view it. In order for Netflix to pay for this they'd have to probably at least triple their rates.

They're not going to all of a sudden exponentially increase the available content to users without jacking up the price. Netflix just released their subscriber numbers and they've had huge growth - they're not going to screw with it.

I hate it too... Homeland is on Netflix in Canada - and when I vacation there my daughter can watch shows she wishes were available at home. But I can understand why they do it.
 
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