Media subscription service Netflix have announced they are to take stronger measures to prevent the use of proxies to access content. While Netflix offer their service in almost 200 countries, the range of TV and film content available varies significantly from country to country due to copyright and distribution laws.
This means that many popular TV shows and movies are available to users in America, but not users in the UK. Other content is available, but is released in the UK only after a long delay. To get around this, many users make use of VPN or proxy services, which can make them appear to be based in a different country or location.
In a blog post, David Fullagar, Vice President of Content Delivery Architecture wrote:
“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.
Some members use proxies or “unblockers” to access titles available outside their territory. To address this, we employ the same or similar measures other firms do. This technology continues to evolve and we are evolving with it. 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.”
Netflix stress that the changes will not affect users who do not use a proxy or VPN to access content outside of their region. Still, questions are raised as to whether this change will do more harm than good. Some argue that using proxies to access geo-restriction content is the lesser of two evils when it comes to internet piracy. There are fears that banning proxies will lead more customers to pirate content using torrent websites or free streaming services rather than paying for Netflix or similar services.
Netflix claim that as well as creating more original content, they are making strides to allow more of their content to be accessed from more countries. They say: “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.”