hulu blocking vpn

[smeten]

visit the link
http://torrentfreak.com/hulu-blocks-vpn-users-over-piracy-concerns-140425/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29&utm_content=FaceBook

 

netflix could start doing this aswell

[Askew]

I don't think Netflix will do so, as they offer services in other countries.

 

This seems to me that Hulu has ad deals in the USA, maybe they don't want to be wasting bandwidth on serving content to people overseas who do not earn them money.

 

I think their entire revenue comes from ad revenue so this could make sense, if that is the reason then it does make sense. I'm not 100% clued up on how this works but because it's 'free' to the end user as an ad supported service it differs from Netflix because they charge a subscription fee.

[gastew15]

Pretty stupid, if the other versions of things that are regin locked are sad for  Ex: Canadian Netflix because they are missing out on customers, maybe it's because their services suck and the people wouldn't be going through the extra trouble if they didn't provide awful service. As for the pirates that makes no sense as paying for a subscription and then watching it on Hulu in a different country is not piracy... It seems like some bullshit companies payed them to do, and if anything they are going to make actual pirates this way, because they made it even harder to watch the stuff legitimately.. (Why does no-one understand how this works already that are payed to do so when a bunch of random people like me do?....)

[Askew]

As far as Netflix is concerned, if people overseas are using VPNs to make US accounts and pay their subscription then they'd most likely want to continue to allow that to occur.

 

I live in the UK and I subscribe to Netflix, however I access the US version because ours sucks anus, I'm not defrauding them IMHO because I pay the fee.

What I am probably doing is watching stuff that they don't have a licence to serve outside of the USA, but that's a whole different issue.

[LukeTim]

Netflix won't start doing this. The fact that you can VPN to access US Netflix from overseas is the very reason many people have an account in the first place. I know plenty of people here in the UK who would cancel their subscription immediately if they could no longer access US content.

Netflix knows this, and that it would hurt them a great deal to stop it from happening.

[MetEishYa]

Does this apply to Hulu and Hulu Plus? or just Hulu?

[mvitkun]

Does this apply to Hulu and Hulu Plus? or just Hulu?

Both, because hulu plus still has ads, and as phrased perfectly by @Askew they have certain ad deals which are unique to, and only applicable in, the U.S.

[Askew]

Both, because hulu plus still has ads, and as phrased perfectly by @Askew they have certain ad deals which are unique to, and only applicable in, the U.S.

 

Yeah, maybe this is a policy that has been passed to users by Hulu on behalf of the agency who controls their ads, who has likely approached them stating something along the lines of,

 

"You have a large amount of users who withhold their location, you need to stop this from happening because we can't work out how much we should be paying you without being able to confirm US viewership of our ads."

[StingBull]

I expect increase in piracy. Not only they are not fixing the existing distribution problem they are creating more.

[Misanthrope]

As far as Netflix is concerned, if people overseas are using VPNs to make US accounts and pay their subscription then they'd most likely want to continue to allow that to occur.

 

I live in the UK and I subscribe to Netflix, however I access the US version because ours sucks anus, I'm not defrauding them IMHO because I pay the fee.

What I am probably doing is watching stuff that they don't have a licence to serve outside of the USA, but that's a whole different issue.

 

There's no VPN to fake an US emitted credit card though. I mean I get Hulu has ads but if they could just use the regional detection to offer targeted ads. But no the real issue here, the real fucking stupidity comes from the content creators who demand that they crap gets arbitrarily seen only on certain regions. 

This is why TV ahd Movies have no future to me: they refuse to acknowledge better distribution even when guys like Netflix and Hulu jump through all their stupid hoops to offer their products in a way that makes sense to people. Nooooo no demand better region locking technology, kill all the bypases, basically force everybody into piracy and then bitch about it and send a few guys to jail to pretend that will stop people.

[Askew]

There's no VPN to fake an US emitted credit card though. I mean I get Hulu has ads but if they could just use the regional detection to offer targeted ads. But no the real issue here, the real fucking stupidity comes from the content creators who demand that they crap gets arbitrarily seen only on certain regions. 

This is why TV ahd Movies have no future to me: they refuse to acknowledge better distribution even when guys like Netflix and Hulu jump through all their stupid hoops to offer their products in a way that makes sense to people. Nooooo no demand better region locking technology, kill all the bypases, basically force everybody into piracy and then bitch about it and send a few guys to jail to pretend that will stop people.

 

I despise region locking, I can understand different pricing in different regions, but region locking leaves people with the choice between going without or piracy (which is of course also free).

 

Popcorn Time is an interesting distribution model, but rather than being adopted and monetized in a way that could work for both the customers and copyright holders it is instead attacked.

 

I'm not sure whether a pre-paid VISA purchased in the US would be able to be used to pay for a Netflix subscription.

I use PayPal to pay for Netflix, this means that Netflix don't actually know what kind of card I am using to pay them with.

I don't know if Netflix look at the billing address with Paypal customers, or if in the event that they did how difficult it would be to use a VPN to obtain a US paypal account from outside the US, or if you even need a verified Paypal account in order to make $10 payments I'd have to look into it more.

[MetEishYa]

There's no VPN to fake an US emitted credit card though. I mean I get Hulu has ads but if they could just use the regional detection to offer targeted ads. But no the real issue here, the real fucking stupidity comes from the content creators who demand that they crap gets arbitrarily seen only on certain regions. 

This is why TV ahd Movies have no future to me: they refuse to acknowledge better distribution even when guys like Netflix and Hulu jump through all their stupid hoops to offer their products in a way that makes sense to people. Nooooo no demand better region locking technology, kill all the bypases, basically force everybody into piracy and then bitch about it and send a few guys to jail to pretend that will stop people.

What i don't get is content creators complain so much about piracy then they do something like this which just promotes even more piracy. A mid ground would be to block vpns for the free service and allow it for the payed service.

[Misanthrope]

Netflix does has regional services and accepts local credit cards for it, so far they've been good with their "Don't ask, Don't tell *wink* *wink*" Policy on using a VPN and I hope they keep that arrangement. But they've been known to fold recently (i.e. that deal with Comcast) so with enough pressure the MPAA could force em to block VPNs.

[Misanthrope]

What i don't get is content creators complain so much about piracy then they do something like this which just promotes even more piracy. A mid ground would be to block vpns for the free service and allow it for the payed service.

 

Aye it's fascinating how quickly they're willing to lose the honestly impressive cultural dominance the US entertainment industry achieved during the end of the 20th century. You would think they would be willing to adapt to the improvements in technology to aggressively expand that dominance but they continue to prove they are more interested in their overreactions to their lost of control instead of addressing it a little bit of brains and saying

 

"You know, people are willing to put a lot of effort to watch our content: they circumvent our most clever locks, they keep hiding their connections, they even do their own subtitling at times and consume tons of our movies that are not even dubbed or subtitled to their native language. Maybe we should be creating our own fucking Netflix service and make a killing? Nah just keep pestering the government to ruin diplomatic relationships over stupid fucking movie downloads, that will stop em and get us even more money somehow, cause we're not even selling this shows on their countries"

[MatheusSanzo]

1. Buy a VPS.

2. Create a VPN server.

3. Profit

[MetEishYa]

Aye it's fascinating how quickly they're willing to lose the honestly impressive cultural dominance the US entertainment industry achieved during the end of the 20th century. You would think they would be willing to adapt to the improvements in technology to aggressively expand that dominance but they continue to prove they are more interested in their overreactions to their lost of control instead of addressing it a little bit of brains and saying

 

"You know, people are willing to put a lot of effort to watch our content: they circumvent our most clever locks, they keep hiding their connections, they even do their own subtitling at times and consume tons of our movies that are not even dubbed or subtitled to their native language. Maybe we should be creating our own fucking Netflix service and make a killing? Nah just keep pestering the government to ruin diplomatic relationships over stupid fucking movie downloads, that will stop em and get us even more money somehow, cause we're not even selling this shows on their countries"

Yeah. According to the article it was also due to pressure from TV suppliers outside the US, but to me if people are willing to put so much effort and research into trying to get netflix and hulu and NOT pirate then the problem is not with vpns its with the crappy TV suppliers not proving 1. quality 2. price 3. On demand 4. variety, but they are more then happy to give u 24/7 ads in 11 languages.

[MetEishYa]

1. Buy a VPS.

2. Create a VPN server.

3. Profit

I can imagine people doing this with there google fiber lines.

[dmegatool]

The Hola extension (Chrome/Firefox) still works if you ever need to...

[Xsilent(X)]

To bad for them they will loose money because of that but hey no one cares

[LAwLz]

I have no problem imagining Netflix being forced to do this as well.

Does it count as piracy though? You are accessing content that isn't suppose to be licensed to you, which means it is piracy.

It's very sad that movie companies don't want to embrace streaming services, and instead do stupid stuff like region lock content.

[mr moose]

Pretty stupid, if the other versions of things that are regin locked are sad for  Ex: Canadian Netflix because they are missing out on customers, maybe it's because their services suck and the people wouldn't be going through the extra trouble if they didn't provide awful service. As for the pirates that makes no sense as paying for a subscription and then watching it on Hulu in a different country is not piracy... It seems like some bullshit companies payed them to do, and if anything they are going to make actual pirates this way, because they made it even harder to watch the stuff legitimately.. (Why does no-one understand how this works already that are payed to do so when a bunch of random people like me do?....)

 

I'm not sure I understood what you mean.  However, an argument to block vpn's because of piracy could be legit as content that hulu streams is normally also sold to networks in other countries for distribution. Hulu only pays for the right to stream in the USA, they don't have permission to stream to other countries as networks in other countries pay for that right.    So if someone uses a vpn to access hulu content then saleability of that content drops.  Why would a tv network pay top dollar for a tv show that hardly anyone is going to watch because they have already seen it elsewhere?  That is why they describe it as a form of piracy, the vpn effectively allows the  rerouting of content from the distributor to any country without any royalties being paid much like digital piracy.

[SethAFitzgerald]

Netflix could, but it almost definitely will not. 

 

What stinks about Hulu's block is that a lot of people in the US use a VPN all the time for privacy reasons and would get scooped up in the block as a result. 

[LAwLz]

Netflix could, but it almost definitely will not.

They might be forced to. I doubt that Hulu did this by their own will. It's most likely the content creators that forced them to, and they might do the same with NetFlix.

Like it or not, using a VPN to access content that isn't meant to be accessed by you can be classified as piracy, even though you are paying for it.

[Victorious Secret]

They might be forced to. I doubt that Hulu did this by their own will. It's most likely the content creators that forced them to, and they might do the same with NetFlix.

Like it or not, using a VPN to access content that isn't meant to be accessed by you can be classified as piracy, even though you are paying for it.

 

Hulu is US only and even the premium version is ad supported. Hulu is basically run by ads. Targeted ads are wasted on a Canadian like me who can't even buy anything that is advertised to me. 

 

Netflix has a better policy. They get their money no matter what, you need to pay to access. Like they really care WHERE you access WHAT because they don't have ads. To Netflix, it is still income and they still pay their dues at the end of the day to the studios and networks who own the content.

[LAwLz]

Hulu is US only and even the premium version is ad supported. Hulu is basically run by ads. Targeted ads are wasted on a Canadian like me who can't even buy anything that is advertised to me. 

 

Netflix has a better policy. They get their money no matter what, you need to pay to access. Like they really care WHERE you access WHAT because they don't have ads. To Netflix, it is still income and they still pay their dues at the end of the day to the studios and networks who own the content.

If that was the case then why are there region restrictions on NetFlix? The content creators do care which countries have access to their content. You are using something you are not suppose to have access to.

I think it's stupid that it is this way, but using a VPN to bypass region restriction is a type of piracy and the content creators might start tracking down on NetFlix as well.

If content creators were happy as long as they got the money, then we wouldn't have any region locks at all.