Because it's not worth the effort to allow VPNs, but only allow content that's available globally since they can't figure out where the traffic really originates?
Honestly, if you're at the point where you're circumventing region locking to access Netflix, you should just pirate it. You're violating copyright either way.
> Honestly, if you're at the point where you're circumventing region locking to access Netflix, you should just pirate it. You're violating copyright either way.
Many people think it's an ethical requirement to pay artists for their work. So even if they're okay (arguably) violating the law, they might not be okay with just taking the art without paying at all.
I really doubt there is any per-view payout. There would be no point in their constant content churn if they were able (or wanted to) negotiate per-view contracts.
The view numbers surely get used during contract negotiations, though. When a movie's contract runs out and Netflix needs to figure out how much they're willing to bid to renew it, they'll look at the view numbers as one factor in determining how much they're willing to bid.
So even if there isn't a per-view payout, I'm sure the view numbers do contribute to the studio getting more money.
My guess is similar, except that the distributor never actually pays out royalties; instead using Hollywood-accounting to funnel the extra money away into the contract for some captive film-rights service company owned by contacts and cronies.
You'd have to imagine Netflix does more than viewing numbers since it's not ads that makes them money but subscribers to the overall service.
If a show is getting press and social media talk then they probably value that higher since new subscribers is of very high value. Retention is a different problem and not as particular to one show.
Kinda funny how a VPN - a perfectly sensible defensive/precautionary strategy for any purpose - automatically equals something nefarious to these schmoes. I use a VPN all the time, including for the most benign activities... I just leave it on all the time. So it's always weird and I never quite seem to get used to it, when some site like Netflix (not that I use Netflix) singles my IP address out. It always takes me a minute to realize, "Oh they think I'm like sup3r 31337 haxxx0r5 because of the VPN." So to protect their security and prove how trustworthy I am, I have to let down my security. Where's the give & take? It's just weird.
Because more often then not, VPN is used to circumvent something they shouldn't be accessing. Just like torrents are essentially used to download pirated software. I bet you side with pirates, because they are only trying to "test" the software first.
> more often then not, VPN is used to circumvent something they shouldn't be accessing
Who knew Cisco was selling enterprise-grade circumvention devices to the world's corporations? Somebody better notify the MPAA!
More seriously, this type of thinking is pernicious. It demands "consumers" simply "consume" is easy-to-control ways, stay in their lanes and not be suspicious.
There would be no internet if people did that. Don't get me wrong; if people want to be sheep, they can be. I will happily encrypt, tunnel, send weird packets and otherwise play on the net the way it was intended, and anyone with a problem with that can chose not to do business with me if they prefer more tractable clientele who will shut up and eat what they're fed.
And if you were on a corporate VPN you wouldn't get detected and blocked by Netflix.
Let's not be disingenuous here: we're not talking about VPN the technology -- it's impossible to detect if someone's traffic has passed though a VPN. We're talking about public 'VPN Services' which are all but billed for circumventing region locking, ISP throttling, and piracy.
Any kind of content provider would blacklist those endpoints in a second.
Don't believe I was being disingenuous. Read the comment to which I was responding.
I honestly don't care if "content providers" want to block VPNs, as I mentioned in my comment. I much more strongly object to this notion that there's something somehow wrong with users using things like this. The attitude of suspicion directed at anyone who values privacy, wants to learn how things work, or even does somewhat dodgy things sometimes is what I object to. That creates sheep, not citizens, and discourages engagement and learning.
It is up to businesses that depend on artificial scarcity (really, any business, but the legacy copyright industry is being discussed here) to make their businesses work; it isn't my responsibility to make my behavior fit their business model. And if they can't, well, they deserve to die.
You can use most (any?) dedicated server or VPS service as a VPN. I personally just create a SSH tunnel to my server in order to browse any site. You do not need to rent any shady "VPN Service".
> for circumventing region locking, ISP throttling
Circumventing either of these is a fine act.
> and piracy
If they wanted to "pirate" they would not have used Netflix.
You jest, but in fact, MPAA, RIAA, absolutely -have- in the past tried to mandate, lobby, require that enterprise devices do L7 inspection for exactly this reason. They have been more than happy to argue that their member's products should have explicit preventions in third party hardware and software (at the third partys expense, of course) to protect revenue.
And on the flip side, certain firewall providers have marketed similar features to restrictive regimes such as China for the Great Firewall. And not just 'nudge nudge wink wink', but produced marketing material saying "This will help you prevent Falun Gong material being available, and help identify end users trying to access this material."
If netflix found that the majority of VPN connections were to avoid region locking, would you agree that blocking VPNs to enforce region locking makes sense?
As if the system for compensating artists was in any way equitable for them. We're better off with piracy, at least noone is pretending to support them... right now the economics are just downright predatory.
> Many people think it's an ethical requirement to pay artists for their work.
I don't think that way. Everybody deserves a reasonable income, but what these "artists" make is totally insane. The only reason I watch their movies is because with the help of their fans, they have created an artificial monopoly around their persona and I am basically forced to watch them. In a free market with intelligent consumers, these people would not make this much.
They haven't "created an artificial monopoly around their persona". You've just created an artificial justification around your actions.
You're also not "basically forced to watch them".
HBO operates with a margin of 33% (1.7Billion income on 4.9 Billion of revenue). That's healthy, but it isn't "totally insane". There isn't much room to spare before they'd have to sacrifice quality. That'd be quite sad, considering the last decade is generally regarded as a golden age of TV.
I've watched probably more than 8,000 episodes in my life. Not because I wanted to keep up with anything (no external motivation), simply because I was addicted to TV shows (great ones, no regrets).
Now I don't watch TV anymore, or ever so rarely. I've converted the time to reading. It changed my life in dramatically good ways —pun very much intended. There's a time for everything, and quite frankly after some time it's like you've watched it all, you could predict plots and even lines (sometimes it feels as though all authors just get inspired from their peers and much of the writing/directing feels recycled).
There's no "keeping up to date" with pop culture imho, at some point it becomes anthropological. You just overgrow pop culture beyond a certain amount of experience. You could actually produce it for that matter. As it relates to the medium, thus technology, I'm thinking it will evolve once again with VR/AR/etc.
Man, if you think TV and movies is the path to wealth...
Most productions that people watch have somewhere between hundreds and tens of thousands of people working on them. Almost none of them are rich, including most of the producers, directors, and stars of your favorite shows--who are usually locked into contracts they signed before their shows got big, and shows almost never get big. The number of people who will get rich from a given TV show or movie is between zero and almost zero.
99% of show business is folks trying to get by, same as anywhere else. Most people in show business could earn more doing almost anything else. Almost all of them make less than some kid in Silicon Valley building Tinder for Dogs. Programmers at Netflix make far, far more than almost every artist and even many of the financiers, and few here would complain about that.
Movies and TV shows have become much more expensive than in the 80s, and yet I don't think they are much better. It's as if producers are throwing in money instead of creativity. I just can't support that to the extent that they expect me to.
Also, we should all benefit from economies of scale, not just the film producers.
> The only reason I watch their movies is because with the help of their fans, they have created an artificial monopoly around their persona and I am basically forced to watch them.
I have seen enough MST3K to know that an actor that is skilled at the craft is worth quite a bit more than I had previously suspected. You really don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
In a free market with intelligent consumers, these people would not make quite so much, but it would still be a significant amount.
People that can uphold a willing suspension of disbelief are rare enough, but those who can invoke it are the ones truly deserving of that reasonable income. Those folks aren't always the actors. Sometimes it's the writers, directors, or even the make-up or foley artists. Those people that don't get face time in front of the public might not always get the recognition they deserve, and they're the ones we really want to be paid for their art. But there are a lot of people shaving money off the wad before it gets to them, so putting too much cash in their hands is a small price to pay so that those who deserve it can actually make a living.
By VPNing into content, you aren't really paying artists. You pay Netflix, but Netflix doesn't license the content. So really you are just paying Netflix for stuff you are effectively pirating. Skip the middle man.
You still have to pay for an account. Which is used to pay licensing fees.
The difference is "This dollar came from a user in the US", versus "This dollar came from a user in Eastern Europe (or wherever Netflix isn't available)".
Netflix is still licensing the content, just not for your (real) jurisdiction.
To imply that it's better, then, to just outright pirate the content is... confusing.
> Because it's not worth the effort to allow VPNs, but only allow content that's available globally since they can't figure out where the traffic really originates?
You don't really need to, you just need to say "VPN IP? Okay, you get our own global content only."
Honestly, if you're at the point where you're circumventing region locking to access Netflix, you should just pirate it. You're violating copyright either way.