SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Since early 2020 Netflix has cracked down on VPN users by disconnecting sessions at random and terminating SSL connections to their main website. This action is to due to content distributors pressuring Netflix to prevent users from accessing content outside of their geographical zone as they believe this is costing them in terms of profit. The end result is that users who always use a VPN to access the internet are cut from Netflix as collateral damage even if their account is registered in the same country where they connect to a VPN for. While some VPN providers have given up, NordVPN and a few others are battling on to provide their users with peace of mind while accessing services on the internet.
Can I get my money back because Netflix is not delivering the service I paid for?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:36PM (15 children)
I don't think that it's cool for the content providers to limit the selections regionally. There's plenty of foreign language content that I can't get due to the region locking.
But, that being said, unless you're unable to browse without a VPN and you're VPN is in the country you live in on both ends, you are getting what you paid for. What you paid for was whatever the regional selection for your area is. In some areas there are more or fewer titles, but the titles available elsewhere weren't included in the deal.
It annoys me a great deal that the selections are limited in terms of foreign content, but Netflix is being pressured to limit access and either lose out on content or pay for a global license.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:16PM (14 children)
I disagree, and rather strongly. So called "rights holders" don't have any right, nor authority, to limit what people can see. Especially so with Netflix, who apparently pass royalties on to those same rights holders. If I contact a book store in any country in the world, seeking a specific title, the book store will happily sell me that book. He/she may or may not charge me a premium for mailing the book, but if I'm willing to pay the vendor's price, he will ship. No author has any authority to block the sale.
Same rules should apply to streaming, downloading, or whatever other means I might use to view a movie. Artificial and nonsense barriers to distribution need to die a painful death, and quickly.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fustakrakich on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:57PM (3 children)
So called "rights holders" don't have any right, nor authority, to limit what people can see.
Yeah well, they write the laws for our elected officials to rubber stamp. So our feelings about their "rights" are moot.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 11 2020, @04:58PM (2 children)
That situation is solved easily enough with pitchforks and torches.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday April 11 2020, @05:11PM (1 child)
Not it's not. It's been done before. The replacements with the pitchforks and torches are just attacking each other and are no better anyway.
The Party has a ~95% majority. You oughta make at least a feeble effort to vote them out first. The "pitchforks and torches" gag is bullshit
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday April 11 2020, @08:05PM
Oh ye of little faith! But it's not the pitchforks and other tools of force that defeat them. It's reality. Every time they try to legislate or enforce some form of artificial scarcity, a lot of people see it for the bull that it is, and refuse to accept it. And neither they nor the law can do much about it. They can make noise, try to scare people with extreme threats and whine about those mean pirates killing their business model, and try yet another idiotic DRM scheme, but those are awfully feeble when set against reality.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Saturday April 11 2020, @07:53PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 11 2020, @08:09PM (1 child)
Well, in the end, they lack the power. Pirate Bay says so, and I believe them.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Saturday April 11 2020, @11:50PM
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday April 14 2020, @12:40PM
I do wonder sometimes how many flat-earthers really believe in a flat Earth and how many are just along for the ride because it's fun.
Come on, do you really expect me to believe that you can understand the acceleration-gravity equivalence in general relativity and still think the Earth is flat?
(talking about the explanation that the flat Earth is accelerating upwards at one G.)
-- hendrik
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Spamalope on Saturday April 11 2020, @10:14PM
In the past, book publishers did indeed try adding EULAs to books to restrict reading to the original purchaser and such. Courts refused to enforce such restrictions, whereas the MPA first greased the right palms so that EULAs converting a sale into a license would be deemed lawful. That's the problem right there...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @10:35PM (2 children)
You're focusing on whether the book seller has the *right* to not sell you something, which is a valid concern, but what baffles me more is whether the book seller has any *motivation* to not sell you something. Unless the book to be shipped would get the seller in legal trouble due to e.g. morality laws of the destination country, the reasoning to not want to make the sale eludes me.
But WEMAKETVANDMOVIE people create that motivation by first creating business deals that only Country A can sell this stuff to people in Country A. Having made that deal, your VPN, without further examination, appears to mess it up and needs to be stopped before the deal falls apart. In other words, it isn't about the customer or the customer's money at all. It's about some unrelated-to-the-customer deal that must be far more lucrative than your $monthly.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @09:15AM (1 child)
I can't understand this argument.
Let's say I live outside the US. So, I buy Netflix in my country. I use a VPN to connect to US Netflix servers. Netflix has licensed the content in the US. They pay, I pay, I watch, all happy?
Up this a bit. Let's say the content is not available in my country. Or, I just can't pay for it here. Same thing: connect with VPN, and we're all happy? Right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @03:33PM
The US party that receives the payment for the license may not be the one with the right to sell distribution rights where you're located. That's the detail a lot of people in this discussion are missing. Paying the wrong party for rights isn't any different than just pirating, except that you can pretend like it's a licensed copy. But, you might as well just pirate at that point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @05:31PM (1 child)
Umm, that's why they can't limit the number of people in your living room while you watch it. Netflix is not allowed to stream to individuals in those areas. And they do have a responsibility to do what they can to avoid unauthorized streams.
I don't particularly care for it either, but you're a moron if you think those streams are anything other than piracy. Netflix would love to allow those streams, but the reality is that the content holder hasn't authorized them to stream to those regions and failing to take steps could lead to further losses of content.
As far as books go, those are purchased, not rented, first sale doctrine, or equivalent, applies. Not to mention that the publisher has no way of knowing what customers do with their product after the fact. If I buy a copy and ship it to a foreign country, the publisher would have no idea.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 12 2020, @05:47PM
I won't call you a moron, but this is piracy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrm1hO18BQ4 [youtube.com]