Netflix Goes Global

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Netflix Goes Global

Postby jon » Mon Jan 11, 2016 2:31 pm

Netflix says it’s ‘not obvious’ how to limit use of VPNs
Shane Dingman
LAS VEGAS — The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016 5:52PM EST
Last updated Monday, Jan. 11, 2016 11:53AM EST

Netflix Inc. managed a global rollout of its service to 130 new countries last week without a single technical glitch, but it says it can’t do much more than it already is about VPN users circumventing its geographic blocks and frustrating its localized competitors.

The hashtag #netflixeverywhere was coined to describe the push (everywhere does not so far include China or North Korea), but the ambitious global expansion also requires the company to acquire more and more content to fit those international tastes. The Los Gatos, Calif., company has 31 of its own original series for 2016, as much as 600 hours of new programming it can show anywhere around the globe.

The content it licenses from other sources – movie studios, cable and broadcast television providers – is often a different story. Territorial rights are “sliced and diced,” according to Ted Sarandos, the company’s chief content officer, in ways that tend to frustrate users.

According to Elizabeth Bradley, vice-president of content acquisition at Netflix, sometimes rights are presold before Netflix can ever bid: “We have a show like The Blacklist, we have it in most all of our territories, but the timing may be different, and the availability is different.”

As Canadians can attest, that means a lot of interesting content is often unavailable outside the United States. In slightly rarer instances, it means other territories have different shows or movies that the Netflix U.S. catalogue lacks. It has created a ripe market for providers of software solutions to spoof a user’s location, so viewers can check out those different catalogues, an exercise made vastly more complex by 190 potential territories.

“Our ambition is to do global licensing and global originals, so that over maybe the next five, 10, 20 years, it’ll become more and more similar until it’s not different,” Netflix chief product officer Neil Hunt explained in an interview at the CES 2016 convention in Las Vegas. “We don’t buy only for Canada; we’re looking … for all territories; buying a singular territory is not very interesting any more.”

In the meantime, Canadian media executives, particularly from Bell, have in the past called consumer use of VPNs “stealing,” and allege that Netflix isn’t doing enough to stop it. Briefing books released by the new federal Liberal government show the issue of copyright and VPNs has been put on the radar of Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly.

“We do apply industry standard technologies to limit the use of proxies,” Mr. Hunt says. “Since the goal of the proxy guys is to hide the source it’s not obvious how to make that work well. It’s likely to always be a cat-and-mouse game. [We] continue to rely on blacklists of VPN exit points maintained by companies that make it their job. Once [VPN providers] are on the blacklist, it’s trivial for them to move to a new IP address and evade.”

The company does claim to have a salutary effect on more overt forms of piracy. At the Netflix keynote last week, Mr. Sarandos said that the use of BitTorrent – a popular source of copyright-evading movie and television downloads – went down 14 per cent in Australia after Netflix officially launched in the spring of 2015. Unofficially, reports suggest as many as 200,000 Australians had already been accessing Netflix via VPN; there are more than a million subscribers now. Canada is estimated to have about four million subscribers.

“When we have global rights, there’s a significant reduction in piracy pressure on that content. If a major title goes out in the U.S. but not in Europe, it’s definitely pirated in Europe, much more than it is if it’s released simultaneously,” Mr. Hunt says.

The company’s expansion plans could put some market share muscle behind its desire for global rights, too. Mr. Hunt says Netflix has subscribers in 50 per cent of the broadband-connected homes in the United States today, about 40 million of its 70 million subscribers, and it is aiming to capture 60 million to 90 million subscribers in the United States. In the rest of the world, gaining a fraction of the 2.5 billion (mostly wireless) broadband consumers represents an enormous growth opportunity.

Netflix’s push for global rights may put national streaming services that have no plans to compete internationally – such as Bell’s CraveTV and Rogers/Shaw Shomi – at a disadvantage in the bidding. Another concern that Canadian content-makers have raised is that Netflix doesn’t have to abide by Canadian content rules, so the service may not reflect local culture much.

“Content that succeeds tends to succeed anywhere,” Ms. Bradley says. “We did a four-picture deal with Adam Sandler because we could see in the data every time you had an Adam Sandler picture, even if the critics don’t love it, it turns out fans really do. Consistently and globally.”

Mr. Sandler’s first Netflix original, The Ridiculous 6, was just announced as the most-watched movie in its first 30 days in the history of Netflix. And yes, critics did hate it. “Great news: They don’t seem to be doing all the watching,” says Ms. Bradley.
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Re: Netflix Goes Global

Postby kal » Thu Jan 14, 2016 10:09 am

Netflix VP of Content Delivery Architecture says he'll be stopping proxied access in coming weeks.

A pretty bold statement. Clearly the company is drawing some heat from regional license holders, especially after its recent expansion into 130 countries.

This should draw some pretty heated reaction.

https://media.netflix.com/en/company-bl ... al-service
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Re: Netflix Goes Global

Postby jon » Sun Apr 03, 2016 9:36 pm

Netflix cracks down on piracy, virtual border hopping amid global expansion
Aleksandra Sagan, The Canadian Press
04.02.2016

TORONTO - Canadian Netflix subscribers are the only ones who can't peek into the halls of "Degrassi: Next Class." Viewers in Africa and Turkey can't see how the prisoners at Litchfield penitentiary are faring in "Orange is the New Black."

It's not only Netflix's original content that is region-specific. Not all Netflix libraries were created equal due to international copyright and content licensing restrictions.

Some web-savvy folks have overcome those obstacles by streaming pirated content for free or using a virtual private network (VPN) service to trick Netflix into streaming the shows and movies available in another country, like the United States, which has the widest selection.

But it seems Netflix is tired of customers hopping over virtual borders to access content available to people in other countries and scofflaws streaming its original content free of charge.

The company is cracking down on piracy and digital border hopping amid a global expansion that only omits China, Syria and Crimea from accessing the streaming service.

Netflix has reportedly hired Vobile Inc., a company that helps firms protect their original content on the web, to tackle its piracy woes.

Over roughly the past four months, Vobile filed more than 350 takedown notices to Google, according to Lumen, a Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society project studying online content takedown requests. The notices ask Google to remove the suspected URLs from its search results.

These requests pinpointed more than 96,000 URLs, according to Google's transparency report, many of which host streams to Netflix's original shows and movies, like House of Cards and Making a Murderer. The requests mostly target content on the sites Uploaded and Vodlocker.

Vobile did not respond to request for comment. But both Lumen and Google connect Vobile to the copyright owner Netflix2.

The company also seems to have stepped up its efforts to prevent customers from using VPN services to hop across virtual borders.

In mid-January, Netflix said its practices against VPNs are evolving.

"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," said David Fullagar, the company's vice-president of content delivery architecture, in a blog post about a week after Netflix announced it would be available in 130 more countries.

A Netflix spokesman said the company did not have any comment beyond Fullagar's post.

Netflix found an ally for this crackdown in PayPal, a digital payment company, when it recently decided to discontinue service to some of these VPN providers.

"PayPal does not permit the use of its service for transactions that infringe copyrights or other proprietary rights," according to a company statement. It continues to support VPN providers that do not market their services for unlawful purposes.

Since its announcement, it appears Netflix has thwarted the tactics of many VPN service providers, which have been scrambling to provide solutions to frustrated clients.

Unblock-us, for example, has been tweeting customers that its support team is "a few days behind" in troubleshooting Netflix errors since mid-March as users complain Netflix is blocking them from viewing content until they disable the proxy service.

Unblock-us did not respond to a request for comment.

Netflix has outsmarted most of these services, say frustrated former geo-blocking subverters on a subreddit dedicated to accessing Netflix by proxy.

The moderators for another Netflix subreddit have since banned discussion about VPN use after users raised concerns Netflix may peruse the threads to determine which services to target.

Some customers say they've cancelled their Netflix subscriptions if they can't use these services, while others are threatening to do so.

But the company appears committed to its cause while it works toward making the same TV shows and movies available to all its customers, regardless of their physical location.

"That's the goal we're pushing towards," Fullagar said.
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Re: Netflix Goes Global

Postby kal » Mon Apr 04, 2016 6:46 am

Some may be interested in a Nanaimo company and their borderlessinternet.com service. It's really a security service but bypassing of geoblocking is a byproduct.
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Re: Netflix Goes Global

Postby jon » Sat Apr 23, 2016 9:40 pm

Netflix drops tech-bomb on Canadian VPN users
Jim Slotek
04.21.2016
Post Media

It appears Netflix has dropped a tech-bomb on millions of Canadians who use VPNs to stream its U.S. service — rescuing Mary Ann Turcke’s daughter, and many of the rest of us, from a life of crime.

Turcke is the Bell Media president who last year publicly snitched on her 15-year-old daughter for using a virtual private network (VPN) to access U.S. Netflix for movies and TV shows not available on Canadian Netflix.

“We have to get engaged and tell people they are stealing,” she said at the time.

Netflix announced in a blog post in January that it would be employing new high-tech methods to stymie VPNs and other side-doors to the “geo-blocking” of programming.

The movies and TV shows illegally streamed are generally not licensed by Netflix in Canada.

And by all accounts, Netflix was not bluffing.

One of the larger for-pay VPN services, Unblock-Us.com, seems to have had its access U.S. Netflix crippled. Its Twitter feed is an endless stream of posts like “Sorry, we are a few days behind, but we are working as fast as we can around the clock,” and, “If you would like a refund, please let support know and they can help.”

And according to posts in the Reddit-based board NetFlixByProxy, people using all sorts of VPNs are receiving the notice “Proxy Detected — Access to America Denied” and headers like “Anybody know how they are blocking us?” Others on the board are warning not to mention VPNs that are still functioning, fearing Netflix is monitoring such comments and will target offenders accordingly.

One Toronto-based digital professional, who preferred his name not be used, confirmed to the Sun he subscribes to UnBlock-Us.com and that he has lately been unable to access American Netflix with it.

“It sounds like Netflix will triumph, which sucks for me,” he said. He said he has been using a VPN to access Netflix and other geo-blocked U.S. streaming services like Hulu because “it makes cutting the (cable) cord that much less painful.”

How many Canadians are affected by the techno-attack on VPNs is unclear. But about 40 per cent of English-speaking Canadians have Netflix subscriptions, according to Media Technology Monitor. And of them, about a third admit to having accessed the American version.

Contacted this week by Canadian Press, Netflix offered no comment on the current state of its VPN war, beyond what was announced in January.

One ironic example of Netflix’s protectionism is Degrassi: Next Class, the new reboot series that followed Degrassi: The Next Generation. The various Degrassi school series were created in Canada and have been filmed here for 36 years.

First Class is available on U.S. Netflix and on Netflix around the world — but not yet on the Canadian version. It’s currently being shown here on the pay-cable Family Channel, which means its fans need a cable subscription and then pay extra for Family. Next Class will run on Canadian Netflix when its run on Family finishes.

Degrassi creator Linda Schuyler acknowledges that VPNs are very much an issue involving young people like Turcke’s daughter.

“Kids don’t have landlines, they don’t have cable,” she said. “The whole idea of ‘appointment viewing’ is completely alien to them. If they want to watch it, they want to watch it now — in their time and in their space.”

The fact that Degrassi signed a deal with Netflix was partly driven by the show’s cast, she said. “Two or three years ago, the kids (on Next Generation) were saying to us, ‘Why aren’t we on Netflix? Why are we on these old-fashioned broadcasters?’”

Degrassi is known for tackling contemporary teen issues from body issues to cyber-bullying. But Schuyler said they’ve never dealt with teens’ predilection for getting free stuff off the Internet.

Asked how the issue might get treated if they wrote a Degrassi episode around it, she laughed and said, “You’ve stumped me.

“Obviously, we can’t encourage illegal actions, so I guess we would have to take some sort of moral stance on it. It’s a complicated issue.”

SHOWS AND MOVIES CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ON U.S. NETFLIX BUT NOT ON CANADA’S:

Alias, Ally McBeal, Amadeus, American Horror Story, Animaniacs, Antisocial (Canadian movie), Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, Atonement, August: Osage County, The Barbarian Invasions (Canadian movie), Being Human (U.S. version), The Bernie Mac Show, Bill Nye, The Science Guy, Bob’s Burgers, Bonnie & Clyde Burn Notice, Californication, Cheers, Chuck, Criminal Minds, CSI, Damages, Darkman, Dude, Where’s My Car?, eXistenZ (Canadian movie), Flashpoint (Canadian series), The Following, Gossip Girl, Haven, Hoodwinked, The Incredible Hulk, Inglourious Basterds, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Kill Bill Vols. 1&2, The League, The Legend Of Drunken Master, Louie, The L Word, M*A*S*H, My Name Is Earl, NCIS, One Tree Hill, Parks and Recreation, Rules Of Engagement, The Shawshank Redemption, Sliders, Snowpiercer, Sons Of Anarchy, Star Trek (all series), Talladega Nights, Team America World Police, The West Wing, When Jews Were Funny (Canadian documentary feature), Y Tu Mama Tambien.
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Re: Netflix Goes Global

Postby drmusic » Sun Apr 24, 2016 11:30 am

Some of the shows and movies on that list are available on Crave and/or Shomi. I imagine when Rogers, Global, and Bell buy broadcast rights to this stuff they're also locking in streaming rights.
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