Netflix to Globally Battle VPNs, Proxies and Unblockers

Streaming Giant Recognizes Pointlessness of Action, Will Do It Anyway

♦Our friends at the Hollywood Reporter have news of how Netflix intends to try and combat piracy and early leaking of programming…

Long-term good news, short-term bad news for Netflix customers. The streaming giant might have plans for global domination, but will approach each new market cautiously, offering a restricted service until it can get all territory rights to TV shows and films in its vast library. Part of that process is to ensure that customers are accessing their local Netflix service, with the company publicly acknowledging that customers worldwide have been working around the system to access, in the main, Netflix in the U.S., with the use of proxies or virtual private networks (VPNs). Netflix’s U.S. service has many thousands of hours more content available than it does in the other 189 countries in which it now operates.

“If all of our content were globally available, there wouldn’t be a reason for members to use proxies or unblockers,” David Fullagar, Netflix’s vice-president of content delivery architecture, wrote in a company blog on Thursday. “We are making progress in licensing content across the world…but we have a ways to go before we can offer people the same films and TV series everywhere,” he added.

“Over time, we anticipate being able to do so. For now, given the historic practice of licensing content by geographic territories, the TV shows and movies we offer differ, to varying degrees, by territory. In the meantime, we will continue to respect and enforce content licensing by geographic location,” he said.

“That means in coming weeks, those using proxies and unblockers will only be able to access the service in the country where they currently are,” Fullagar wrote.

The announcement comes just a week after Netflix went live in 130 new countries, bringing its total coverage to 190 territories worldwide.

Netflix was widely quizzed on the proxy issue when it launched in Australia, last March, with the company side-stepping queries. At the time, local reports estimated that the company had between 150,000-200,000 Australian customers using VPNs to access the Netflix U.S. service. It’s unclear how many of those migrated to the Australian services, which now counts around 2.5 million users, or continue to access Netflix in the U.S.

Clearly Netflix’ newfound desire to step into line with program licensors and content providers has struck a nerve. Newspapers in France, Hong Kong, Germany and Spain, places where there are significant numbers of people using VPNs to access Netflix U.S., have all reported on Netflix planned clampdown since it was announced on Thursday.

“The strategy is simple – they have a responsibility to content owners to only show that content in the geographies for which they have a license. Enforcing those restrictions is a Netflix responsibility,” Gartner research director Brian Blau told Reuters.

For Netflix’ part: “we look forward to offering all of our content everywhere and to consumers being able to enjoy all of Netflix without using a proxy. That’s the goal we will keep pushing towards,” Fullagar wrote.

Tripwire’s technical consultant comments:

It will be interesting to see how effectively NetFlix can police this. In every single battle between corporate technology and hackers, the hackers have won (Hi Sony!). This, added to the near-universal availability of downloadable TV from pirate sites, means that NetFlix is probably more worried about public image, partners, and investors than the leaking of content. Happily all of those sectors – add in politicians if you want – have, for the most part, a gnat’s grasp of how technology works these days. For all intents and purposes, the only effective tool against those who wish to view your content is to make it available faster in more territories, which is why the video release dates of blockbuster films are so soon after the cinema release now. There is a limited time window to monetize content at top value.

Hollywood Reporter

Netflix