Just in the last few weeks I have had conversations with several different people, all of whom had been caught red handed violating their customer agreement with Netflix.
When someone signs up for a Netflix account, the User Agreement specifically says “You may view a movie or TV show through the Netflix service primarily within the country in which you have established your account and only in geographic locations where we offer our service and have licensed such movie or TV show.” And when most gringos click on [I agree] they then proceed to blithely ignore the agreement they made. All one had to do to get away with this deception was to employ a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or proxy server to obfuscate their Mexican IP address. I have always taken care to warn my clients of the potential problems doing this, and indeed is appears that the party is coming to an end.
Netflix serves many countries including Mexico, however; users in the United States get access to far more content. Expatriates in Mexico want access to all of that and they want it in English. Until recent weeks they could have it, in part because Netflix seemed to be turning a blind eye to violators of its user agreement.
That has changed in 2016 starting with a January posting on its web site by Vice President of Content Delivery Architecture David Fullagar, writing that the company would continue working to make more programming available to those outside the U.S. but also that measures will be taken to ensure that existing copyright and content licensing agreements are respected. He goes on to say “in coming weeks, those using proxies and unblockers will only be able to access the service in the country where they currently are.”
The position of Netflix reeks of hypocrisy on two levels. Netflix owns the rights to their own productions such as the popular “House of Cards” yet it has embargoed its own shows from worldwide distribution. And when it comes to illegally distributing copyrighted content Netflix is breaking copyright law big time in many countries by providing programming to IP addresses located on U.S. military bases around the world; this according to “Stars and Stripes.”
In spite of what I just wrote it is hard to see Netflix as the bad guys here. The company has a proven record of working to negotiate global distribution rights for programming so it can then make it available everywhere. These efforts are being stymied by rights holders in Hollywood and elsewhere, apparently preferring to maintain the status quo for copyrights licensing.
We as internet users idealistically think of The Internet as unrestricted and border-free; the reality is that copyrighted content is not free to roam all of cyberspace. Movies and TV shows are still bound by licensing restrictions tied to contracts negotiated years ago, a fragmented global landscape of licensing agreements for individual countries was created to serve Hollywood movie studios and network marketing strategies. This methodology has not kept pace with the realities of today’s information technology.
In spite of the fact that Netflix is ready, willing and technically able to make all the latest shows available online, there are legal restrictions enshrined in a body of copyright law going all the way back to the British “Statute of Anne” promulgated in 1710. Around the world, thousands of intellectual property rights lawyers and movie studio legal departments have had three centuries to firmly entrench their positions.
Suddenly this year, 2016, Netflix expanded to offer service in an additional 130 countries, added to the 40+ already served last year. A problem is that Netflix cannot legally offer everything everywhere. This has setup a battle between 18th-century legal traditions versus 21st-century technology. Netflix has stated the company would continue working to make more programming available to those outside the U.S. and to this end it is seeking to obtain global distribution rights for programs that are now only available in limited markets. Who could blame Netflix for wanting to have one worldwide agreement with a Hollywood studio rather than having to negotiate possibly 190 different distribution agreements for each of 190 different countries. Unfortunately, the latter is what our present patchwork of copyright laws make necessary.
It is abundantly clear that customers around the world want access to the U.S. Netflix content and could not care less about technically violating international copyright agreements. A Netflix spokeswoman admitted “People will always try and find ways to get the content they want no matter the technological barriers.”
Technically and historically, I see this situation as ridiculous because Netflix is not the first company to try restricting access. Two years ago Hulu tried to limit access for their customers who were using VPNs and proxies. Hulu’s attempt failed miserably because many VPN providers quickly found ways to bypass the restrictions. In the end, Hulu did not have the resources to play cat-and-mouse with all their customers who were circumventing geo-restrictions because it was one cat versus a huge number of mice.
If you settle in one evening to enjoy Netflix and instead you receive a message saying you are not authorized to watch, that probably means that in spite of trying to hide your location, you have been found out.
The current situation is quite fluid. Many VPN services are now coming up with solutions for unblocking Netflix. Some of them are blatantly advertising this, so a quick Google search is sure to find companies that do this. Meanwhile Netflix says it is constantly changing its VPN blocking technology.
One has to question the thinking of Netflix management for creating this situation in the first place. Did the company honestly believe its customers from Argentina to Zambia would fail to notice that the Netflix service in their country was nowhere near as complete as the U.S service? Did it think customers would gladly pay the same price or more for limited service in their home country when better U.S. service could be accessed simply by using a VPN or proxy? And Netflix is most certainly to blame for not aggressively blocking international customers from using VPNs and proxies, until millions were already doing so.
Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant with more than 20 years IT experience and a Texan with a lifetime love for Mexico. The opinions expressed are his own. He may be contacted through his web site at SMAguru.com.