Netflix begins blocking users who bypass region locks

[Scorpus]

Netflix has begun blocking users' access to the service when it detects that a geolocation bypassing utility, such as a proxy or VPN, is being used. Although these blocks are currently limited in scope, it could be a precursor to a wider crackdown by the popular streaming service.

Over the past few weeks, some users who have been bypassing region locks have discovered difficulties watching Netflix content. VPN provider TorGuard noted that there has been a recent spike in errors when connecting specifically to Netflix, indicating the company might be targeting and blocking specific IP addresses linked to bypassing restrictions.

However not all IP addresses were blocked, and many people could continue to watch Netflix simply by changing their VPN location. The same can't be said for users of the Android app, who recently found that it was forcing Google DNS, preventing people outside the United States from using the app via popular DNS-based geo-unlocking utilities.

VPN- and DNS-based region bypassing services have become a major problem for movie and TV studios, which label their users as "VPN pirates". Although these users are legitimately purchasing subscriptions to Netflix and not strictly pirating content without paying, they are accessing content not normally available to them.

The reason why content is not available to Netflix users in all locations, and why Netflix libraries and even Netflix access differ from country to country, is down to licensing deals between studios and services.

In some countries, TV shows and movies are exclusively licensed to services that aren't Netflix. When a user decides to bypass the region lock on Netflix and watch it there, rather than through the local provider with exclusive access, it affects the studio's licensing and negotiation process. If too many users choose to watch through cheap and easy services like Netflix, media giants won't be able to sign as many lucrative, restrictive deals in some locales.

Naturally the easiest way to solve region locking, blocking and bypassing is to offer content to users in all regions, but thanks to stubborn and 'old-school' media companies, this probably won't be happening any time soon.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/59283-netflix-region-lock-bypass-crackdown.html

 

[noel24]

Maybe they wanna boost their presence on torrent sites and move to free-to-watch, product-placement model?

 

[TheLastPanda]

A lot of people get angry with Netflix but no one would licence content to them if they didn't do this. Glad the author realized it's just a problem created by the media companies.

 

[SuperVeloce]

Well then... torrenting it is. sucks (but not for me I guess)

 

[trparky]

And what's NetFlix going to do about those people who, like my brother, are soldiers stationed in foreign countries? Are they going to block them? Bad move NetFlix!

 

[SirGCal]

I think the problem is more that the world isn't allowed X movie or TV show at the same time. Releases are sometimes as much as a year apart. Honestly the whole region issue with media is stupid and needs to go away. Release stuff period, for the world, etc. Otherwise all you do is encourage pirating by the areas who have to wait longer for legit copies. As a consumer all I can think is... DUH! Are the corporations that stupid? Ohh yes they are... sorry, I forgot myself for a moment...

And as for Netflix having to pay to license a show in each area... dumb also. Have the show or not. They have to be paying members to get into the service and if you have the show for your service, to me that should be enough. A lot of people use a proxy or vpn just to bypass the ISP's throttling services which they do in bulk now-a-days, even with the 'fast lane' bs... (COMEON Net Neutrality!) Another topic but still. I think this whole thing is just dumb. If they spent half as much time and money (the movie companies) into just putting out better stuff world releases, they wouldn't need all of this garbage to begin with.

And yes, what about American's overseas... Just cause they are over there, it's too bad, so sad? That's horrible. Actually, that's corporate America.

 

[Guest]

Disable send geolocation in browser

 

[Zebuthecow]

We have a handful of media empires and the dying, ultra corrupt cable television industry taking over the Internet via bribing public officials from hometowns to federal governments- all in the name of fighting piracy and the bigger lie that there is congestion on the Internet.

These cable television companies are also the largest ISPs for landline broadband in the USA. They are also owners of major movies studios as well. There are no other companies in the world with more conflicts of interest than the cable television/ISP/entertainment industries.

The big ISPs/Cable television companies took $200,000,000,000.00 of United States citizen's tax money to roll out broadband to every nook and cranny and instead they have used that money to take over movie and television studios, pay off legislatures to pass laws that make it impossible for anyone to start up a company to compete with them, and gave themselves raises with the rest.

They are now losing millions each month to people firing them as their cable television providers. I just fired Comcast because they cannot stop themselves from cramming my bill with bogus charges. They raised my new plan within three months from $125 a month to $189 by trying to sneak in duplicate charges.

Netflix is under pressure because these monster companies do not want the competition and are working hard to put them out of business. Since they own the movies studios as well and in collusion with the other ISP/cable television/entertainment studios they now limit us to 250-300GB a month- to stop us from streaming too much in the hopes we will pay for cable television and to recoup their failing cable television department loses whenever we go over the cap.

Netflix and Amazon Prime already pay hundreds of millions each year to upload to us. Much of that money goes to these same ISPs because they also provide backbone hardware for the Internet. Now Netflix is being forced to pay millions more each year to these same companies to reach us or else they will be throttled to the point their service is worthless. Then we pay these same companies ourselves a lot of money each month to reach destinations like Netflix.

The FCC will do nothing about it.

The Republicans now have not put forth one single plan to address this in over five years now. All they have said are bumper sticker slogans and hiding behind the lie that this is a free market issue that the government needs to stay out of.

The Democrats are pretending to be for Net Neutrality, but in reality they are attempting to pervert the meaning of it to push through more government control over the Internet.

I pay for Netflix. I travel. I just stopped paying for the rip off that is Hulu Plus after they started blocking me whenever I traveled because I was using a vpn. If I am at home and my Internet goes down, I use my phone tether which is 4G and unlimited- really unlimited from MetroPCS. I use it a lot of times anyway if I buy a new game on Steam or want to stream a movie on Netflix so I can keep my data cap below 300GB. I will no longer be able to do this now.

This will be the last month I pay a dime for Netflix. Just canceled it.

Fascism is a very misused word. But the reality is, today, Washington DC and these companies are locked in a love affair. DC will stop at nothing to protect these ISP/Cable television/entertainment companies that are ruining the Internet.

The Internet was not created so a handful of companies can cannibalize and cut it up into pieces- blocking us from communicating and using it.

We have all paid trillions to these companies the past 20 years. Data storage and throughput are exponentially cheaper every day.

This is all about control Nothing more. It will only hurt us, the end users- encouraging people to find other ways to either pirate the films or just tell them to shove their films up their asses.

 

[Emexrulsier]

The problem I face is that yes maybe netflix doesn't have licensing rights for certain content here in the UK but the problem is no one else does either so I have no options to view it. On top of that you compare UK to US netflix the UK catalogue is tiny. There are currently 3453 programs on the UK netflix compared to the 8660 in the US. Even if you knocked off 50% of it as being trash their remainder is greater than UKs total. Don't tell me that's anything to do with licencing! I pay for Nowtv (sky), netflix, amazon prime, and blingbox plus my cable does ondemand and I always ALWAYS find things I want on US netflix and never any other services

 

[Guest]

Regions are an arbitrary process made up by media companies to artificially manage demand in order to increase profits.

 

[SNGX1275]

The big ISPs/Cable television companies took $200,000,000,000.00 of United States citizen's tax money to roll out broadband to every nook and cranny and instead they have used that money to take over movie and television studios, pay off legislatures to pass laws that make it impossible for anyone to start up a company to compete with them, and gave themselves raises with the rest.

This is an interesting point, and one I have used in the past. When I looked it up, to be sure I could factually state it I only found a few things on it, and it mostly redirected back to one or 2 articles from what I can remember. Maybe that is because this took place in 1996 and the internet was a much smaller thing back then. Do you have anything specific you could link on this?

I want to believe it, but I think as time rolls on this is becoming more and more stretched from the truth it once was.

 

[wiyosaya]

I could not agree with you more. As an example of a media company, one of the not so egotistical ones, that learned this lesson with one of the bigger shows is the BBC with Doctor Who. A couple of years ago, they started releasing new seasons of Doctor Who simultaneously to both the UK and the US. Previously, they had released Doctor Who to the UK first, then to the US at some later date. What they found was that when it was released to the UK first, it was perhaps the biggest torrented show and, essentially, that lost money for BBC America. They learned their lesson, one can only hope that other content providers will learn their lesson, too.

As a Netflix subscriber, I would be very annoyed if I were unable to watch content, my content, if I were traveling. That, IMHO, is something that I should not have to tolerate. I should always be able to watch the content to which I am legally subscribed, "exclusive" deals or not.

I think the problem is more that the world isn't allowed X movie or TV show at the same time. Releases are sometimes as much as a year apart. Honestly the whole region issue with media is stupid and needs to go away. Release stuff period, for the world, etc. Otherwise all you do is encourage pirating by the areas who have to wait longer for legit copies. As a consumer all I can think is... DUH! Are the corporations that stupid? Ohh yes they are... sorry, I forgot myself for a moment...

And as for Netflix having to pay to license a show in each area... dumb also. Have the show or not. They have to be paying members to get into the service and if you have the show for your service, to me that should be enough. A lot of people use a proxy or vpn just to bypass the ISP's throttling services which they do in bulk now-a-days, even with the 'fast lane' bs... (COMEON Net Neutrality!) Another topic but still. I think this whole thing is just dumb. If they spent half as much time and money (the movie companies) into just putting out better stuff world releases, they wouldn't need all of this garbage to begin with.

And yes, what about American's overseas... Just cause they are over there, it's too bad, so sad? That's horrible. Actually, that's corporate America.

 

[Guest]

"wah wah but I'm an American" XD

If you're using netflix via vpn to access region locked content, then you're no better than any other person downloading media illegally so the question is, why are you paying to break the law when everyone else is doing it for free?

 

[Guest]

"wah wah but I'm an American" XD



"If you're using netflix via vpn to access region locked content, then you're no better than any other person downloading media illegally so the question is, why are you paying to break the law when everyone else is doing it for free?"

^This^

 

[Guest]

Because it is not illegal. Here in Australia, the Government, in the form of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, has actually stated that the use of VPNs and DNS workarounds in not a breach of any law.

 

[Guest]

I just fired my cable company, they're greedy sob's, and contrary to what people claim the satellite company's are just as bad, and DirecTV is in the process of being bought out by AT&T and you can bet that DirecTV's prices are going to go up, once the buy out is done. If you want out of a satellite contract early the satellite companies hit you in the pocket book for hundreds of dollars and even will lie to you depending on where you live about whether or not you can get local channels on the satellite dish.

The government has been paying lip service to all sorts of issues for years, net neutrality, cable competition, phone competition, you name it. When AT&T was broke up back in the 80's, guess what, the break up didn't last, the separate companies were eventually bought out by the main AT&T company in the late 80's/early 90's as I recall, after breakup and antitrust deal was over, and now look at AT&T they're bigger than ever and on a buying spree and screwing more people over than they ever have, just like Comcast. In the mid 90's AT&T bought a cellphone company don't remember which one it was, and what did the federal and state governments do, they allowed it to happen, when they should have said no to AT&T, and now they're basically going to allow AT&T to suckup DirecTV when they should say no.

 

[Emexrulsier]

Netflix have made a statement saying this is not true at all. I though they have measures in place not is changing if you can access netflix via vpn you can still access netflix via vpn.