Bell Media President Says Canadians Are 'Stealing' US Netflix Content 408
iONiUM writes: Today the Bell Media president claimed that Canadians are "stealing" U.S. Netflix, saying the practice is "stealing just like stealing anything else." She went on to say that it is socially unacceptable behavior, and "It has to become socially unacceptable to admit to another human being that you are VPNing into U.S. Netflix. Like throwing garbage out of your car window, you just don't do it. We have to get engaged and tell people they're stealing." Of course, I'm sure the fact that Bell Media profits from Canadian content has nothing to do with these remarks.
Socially Acceptable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Socially Acceptable (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only not frowned upon, it's actively beneficial to all parties. The "problem" is market based pricing and region lockouts. That actively is socially unacceptable, unfortunately that doesn't really stop the idiots in question.
Re:Socially Acceptable (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only not frowned upon, it's actively beneficial to all parties. The "problem" is market based pricing and region lockouts.
Wrong, this "stealing" is detrimental to certain media companies who seek to profit from region lockouts and market based pricing. That's why they want to make it socially unacceptable to use a VPN to evade region lockouts.
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And how will they do that? Oh right, in the article, she says they are going to inform people, and then social opinion shall be so! Wow! She should run for president!
I agree that region locking is absolutely beneficial to media companies because it allows them to charge different prices to different markets. If you remember Econ 101, as you raise the price, your demand drops, but there is still demand. What if you could charge only those people that higher price? That's what media companies are trying
Re: Socially Acceptable (Score:5, Funny)
Market Segmentation should be socially unacceptabl (Score:5, Insightful)
It's unfortunate that the left doesn't have a good pejorative (as with "socialist" or "communist") to describe the right's anti-capitalist bullshit. Phrases like "corporate greed" are way too vague for this kind of thing.
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There is - the f-word, or 'fascist' - but it is, if possible, even more overused than 'communist'. These are pretty much meaningless synonyms for the word 'bad' at this point, with no real semantic value left.
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Re: Socially Acceptable (Score:5, Informative)
The president of Bell Media is a woman.
"stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:5, Informative)
And this is the problem with industry thinking. It is NOT stealing. Copyrights, patents, and trademarks are separate types of law. They are NOT property law. If they were, we would not need a separate part of the Constitution (Art. 1, Sec 8) to define what they mean.
Violating copyright is NOT stealing because the copyright is NOT property. The term "intellectual property" is an intentional obfuscation designed to blur the difference between universal ideas of property ownership and the proposition that ideas can be owned. Ideas can NOT be owned. Copyrights are just temporary monopolies for the purpose of encouraging the arts and sciences. They do NOT exist because "Hey, that's mine". They do not exist for the benefit of the copyright holder. They exist for the benefit of society as a whole. Don't believe me? Read Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution.
Re:"stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't believe you when you imply that the US Constitution applies to Canada, which is what the article covers. You'd do better to refer to the Statute of Anne, as Canada is a Commonwealth country.
Re:"stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:4, Interesting)
And commwealth has nothing to do with law, so the Statute of Anne may or may not apply. I'm in a commonwealth country, and it doesn't apply. So your corrections are incorrect. "Member states have no legal obligation to one another". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
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Except Netflix is available in Canada but with a more limited selection due to agreements with the varying media houses. Bell and Rogers can compete with Netflix Canada, they can't with Netflix US hence why they are bitching about it.
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How confusing.
Lawsuits are legion that involve copyright where specific damages have been used for the purposes of sentencing in the form of, "The copyright owner would have made $x ..."
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Yeah, judges are sloppy sometimes. Copyright "holder" would be a better term. In our super-capitalist country, people are conditioned to think in terms of property and ownership. The common good gets short shrift.
Re:"stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:5, Informative)
No, the problem in this case is not only is it NOT stealing, it is not actually illegal.
Accessing US Netflix outside of the US may break terms of use (which Netflix would have a VERY hard time winning a lawsuit over), but does not currently break any Canadian laws. No more than using a VPN to access any other website.
This whole thing is bloody retarded. In this case, Canadians:
- Pay for the content
- Pay for the VPN to access the content
At least if nothing else, this has convinced me to NEVER sign up for any Bell services.
Re:"stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:5, Insightful)
And of course this "moral stand" has nothing to do with subscriptions for Bell services...
or maybe the fact that Bell is actively trying to gain traction for their own brew of Netflix (CraveTV) is mere coincidence.
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Except that they're really not, they only offer it to people who already have a Bell - or one of their partners - subscription to a Satellite package. You literally cannot sign up for Crave unless you have one, they won't let you, and I'm not paying the metric fucktonne of money Bell requires to get a Satellite package - not to mention they'd likely want me to sign up for their internet too. Did I also men
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Try calling Bell for service some time. Their call centers will make you realize that Bell truly is a 4 letter word!!!
Disclaimer: I'm an American and had to work with Bell on a project. I only have the likes of Comcast, TWC, and AT&T to compare Bell to.
Re:"stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:5, Informative)
Accessing US Netflix outside of the US may break terms of use (which Netflix would have a VERY hard time winning a lawsuit over), but does not currently break any Canadian laws.
I wish that were true but it isn't. You'd be breaking copyright law. You're importing copyrighted content from someone without the legal authority to distribute said content in Canada. It isn't unusual for different companies to have exclusive rights to distribute in various countries, and the U.S. Netflix has no rights to distribute this copyrighted content in Canada. Therefore, in transferring the data from your VPN in the U.S. to your computer in Canada, you're copying copyrighted content which you have no authorization to do. That's illegal. I'm not saying I agree with this law, but it is wrong to say that what you're doing isn't illegal.
Re:"stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:5, Informative)
> You're importing copyrighted content from someone without the legal authority to distribute said content in Canada.
I thought both the US and Canada were signatories of the Berne Convention [wipo.int]. So you're good to go paying for and importing individual works for personal consumption.
It's not only not illegal. It's protected by treaty.
Re:"stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:5, Interesting)
You're importing copyrighted content from someone without the legal authority to distribute said content in Canada.
Hence the VPN. They are delivering the content to the US. The Canadian is then transporting it across the border, for person use (not redistribution).
This is exactly as illegal as buying a DVD and a book from Sam's in the states, and then driving it home to Canada with you across the border. Which is to say, "not even slightly illegal".
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You're importing copyrighted content from someone without the legal authority to distribute said content in Canada.
Hence the VPN. They are delivering the content to the US. The Canadian is then transporting it across the border, for person use (not redistribution).
This is exactly as illegal as buying a DVD and a book from Sam's in the states, and then driving it home to Canada with you across the border. Which is to say, "not even slightly illegal".
Not exactly the same thing and by law it *could* be illegal to buy a DVD in the US and then import it into Canada depending, but moving a physical copy of a work which you rightfully purchased for personal use is usually an exception.... But remember, when you do Netflix over a VPN, you are not importing a physical disk, but the logical data. It's very likely you are violating the terms of your Netflix subscription as well as infringing on the copyright holder's rights to control where the work can be str
Re:"stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:5, Insightful)
But remember, when you do Netflix over a VPN, you are not importing a physical disk, but the logical data. It's very likely you are violating the terms of your Netflix subscription
No question its a violation of my netflix subscription. But that is not even slightly illegal. They are welcome to terminate me as a customer if they don't want my money.
as well as infringing on the copyright holder's rights to control where the work can be streamed
Nope. Its being streamed in the USA. Once it hits my VPN its on my private network. The copyright holder has no streaming rights on the flow of information from the point at which i receive the stream to the point at which i view it. Just as I don't need a streaming license to transfer the data from the computer along a vga cable to the TV.
but the copyright holder can sue you to recover damages.
Sure. What damages though? I paid them for content that wasn't otherwise available; that I consumed in the privacy of my home. What material harm are they going to show the court exactly?
Re:"stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:5, Interesting)
Many lawyers [theglobeandmail.com] disagree with you (see the section headed "But is faking a U.S. IP address illegal?")
Specifically:
"Prof. Fewer said he doubts that the use of a VPN qualified as the breaking of a digital lock on a device designed to prohibit unauthorized copying, since it merely cloaks a user’s IP address."
Re: "stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:5, Informative)
Awh come on people... Copyright infringement is a CIVIL law issue not a criminal offense.
So the police may not be knocking down doors to stop you... However, they may be knocking ON your door to serve you with the lawsuit brought by the copyright owners and later assisting in the confiscation of damages when you have a judgment entered and have to pay.
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It can't even be imagined as "stealing" in my mind. Since it's paid for in the U.S., I fail to see the difference if you had driven to the U.S. and purchased something to take back to Canada. it might be "smuggling" if anything, by way of avoiding paying whatever bullshit tariffs Canada might be able to levy, if there even are any that apply.
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It can't even be imagined as "stealing" in my mind. Since it's paid for in the U.S., I fail to see the difference if you had driven to the U.S. and purchased something to take back to Canada. it might be "smuggling" if anything, by way of avoiding paying whatever bullshit tariffs Canada might be able to levy, if there even are any that apply.
You actually set up a Netflix Canada account, and pay in Canadian Dollars. Connect by VPN (or DNS proxy), and Netflix thinks you're "visiting" the US. Regardless of where you registered your account, Netflix will provide the content library of the country you appear to be in. Netflix will do this no problem even though you were just in Canada moments earlier, and even though you apparently travel to the states for months at a time, and are coming from the same IP as hundreds or thousands of other Canadians
Re:"stealing just like stealing anything else" (Score:5, Funny)
They have fewer words in the Canadian language. For convenience, all civil violations regarding copyright issues are called "stealing" there.
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Canadian Grocers aren't going to call their customers thieves for going somewhere else to get something they are not providing they are going to see it as an opportunity to expand their business and get those products for their customers.
The problem is companies that want to regulate and make deals to lock customers into regional services and pricing that do not provide what the customer wants and then criminalize doing business elsewhere in order to protect their bottom line.
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Let's see...the NSA isn't stealing anything (as far as I know). They're doing a variety of other things I consider immoral, and likely illegal.
In the case we're talking about, nobody's getting anything for nothing. Canadians are trying to buy NetFlix just like people in the US do. You're copy-pasting your thinking where it doesn't belong.
You don't seem to understand much of anything else, either, but this should be enough to start with.
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In that case, NSA [extremetech.com], Google [quora.com], Facebook [pcworld.com] et al. collecting our data aren't "stealing" anything either.
Absolutely correct, that is not stealing.
The infringer gets something for nothing — like a thief
"Getting something for nothing" is not, and never has been stealing. Taking something from someone, such that they no longer have full use of it, is.
Inasmuch as anything can be owned [wikipedia.org], why can't ideas be?
Because if someone else has that idea, you still have that idea. For someone to "steal" your idea, they would have had to hit you over the head hard enough that you'd never be able to remember it. Someone copied your idea. He/she didn't steal it.
There is nothing in the article affirming your Socialistic view, that my idea exists for "society as a whole." [...] the Constitution acknowledges the benefit the authors may derive from their writings and discoveries and leaves it to Congress to develop a system to reward them
The Constitution acknowledges the benefit the authors derive from copyright
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They aren't "stealing" anything. How can one "steal" information? That's like stealing the number 4 or the color blue.
There's an obvious difference. The "infringer" gains something different than the copyr
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The agreement was that you would not only pay the fee but also pay it from United States soil and remain on United States soil while viewing works available through the service. What makes such a contract invalid?
No. I setup a Netflix Canada account. A courtesy they provide to all Netflix users is to provide the content library of the region you appear to be in, regardless of where you registered your account. They just think me, and thousands of other Canadians, and UK, and Australians, are just visiting the USA for months at a time, from the same IP.
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Yeah, the summary is flat out wrong.
Right. (Score:5, Funny)
Tiniest violin in the world playing for this woman.
Re:Right. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That had better be a Canadian violin, or else you are stealing.
And God help you if the sheet music isn't in French.
This is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
- You are paying for the content. The same amount a customer in the US would pay.
- You are watching the content.
Why is this suddenly "stealing" if you are in Canada? It's the same content, and the content makers are getting the same money.
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licensed by netflix for your region.
So, how did Bell Media get 'a pieca da action' (say it with a James Cagney accent) for Netflix sales in Canada?
"Dat's a nice little video service ya got there, buddy. Be a shame if sumtin' happened to it. Heh, heh."
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly this.
For a similar situation, see Australia and its indigenous entertainment industry vs American content.
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the packets crossed an imaginary geophysical line to get to you, that's why!
Now be a good citizen and support proper balkaniz^M taxatio^M patriotism!
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this suddenly "stealing" if you are in Canada? It's the same content, and the content makers are getting the same money.
Because Bell Media which owns a television statement and has paid money for episodes of, say, Futurama, is pissed off that you can watch Futurama in Canada via Netflix and not only do they not get a cut, but they don't get to claim you as an ad viewer so they can bilk I mean charge their ad customers for you. They are a middleman, a dinosaur, and part of a broadcasting system that is increasingly irrelevant. If anyone is "stealing" it's these middlemen that produce no content and add no actual value, yet manage to slink their hand in your pocket every month.
Re: (Score:2)
Stealing does not work that way! Good night!
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
I fail to see the immorality of my actions due to the fact that I circumvent a licensing agreement that I was not party to.
Great, so Bell paid for an "exclusive" license for NBC content in Canada. Why should their agreement have anything to do with what sites I access? Last time I checked, Bell Media is not the governing body of Canada.
For the end user this is neither a copyright violation nor a licensing violation. It may violate Netflix terms of service, but I do not believe that violating a websites terms of service is necessarily immoral.
Re: This is ridiculous (Score:3)
it already is socially unacceptable (Score:2)
Good luck with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's really not much difference between using a VPN to gain access to US electronic markets and using a car to gain access to US malls. Is it 'stealing' when a Canadian drives across the border and buys something in the US? Even by the standards of self-interested bullshit from incumbent monopolist assholes, this is unimpressive work.
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Well, if they "throw garbage out the car window" on the way to the American mall, apparently that's like stealing. According to her analogy, at least.
Re:Good luck with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Uhhh...they have. That's the whole point. She's trying to paint US Netflix with the "it's illegal and immoral" brush so people sign up for Bell Media's streaming service.
Problem is she's wrong on both counts (it being neither illegal nor immoral).
Re:Good luck with that. (Score:4, Interesting)
If a Canadian drives to the US to buy products in a US store, don't they have to declare them to customs? I think they mostly don't care about the bottle of Coca-Cola in your cup holder, but if you buy something expensive they might charge you some kind of import duty and/or taxes on it.
I think this is the kind of argument the Bell Media person was more or less trying to make. She owns the exclusive rights to a basket of content in Canada. If someone is going overseas to acquire this content, they are doing basically the same thing that a physical shopper is doing when they go to the US to buy a product that some Canadian store also wants to sell.
I think the purpose of tarrifs and duties is to specifically hinder this kind of ad-hoc cross-border arbitrage. Of course it's well nigh impossible to do for intellectual content.
There are good arguments to be made that Bell Media is just greedy and using monopoly position to extract rent from Canadians.
But there may be other arguments -- Bell's costs may be higher for reasons outside their control (ie, higher taxes, weak exchange rate, etc).
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No, the government would consider that tax evasion. Not the same thing at all.
Hu ? (Score:2)
Re:Hu ? (Score:5, Insightful)
She didn't get her cut.
Amnesty (Score:3, Funny)
I suggest an amnesty period in which any Canadian can return stolen content without penalty.
First sharing is stealing, now (Score:2)
Now, if you buy something in a foreign country, and then bring it back to your home country its stealing, even if you legally bought it.
This is like how police charge people with "assaulting an officer" for bleeding on them after they beat the crap out of them at a traffic stop for doing 5 mph over the speed limit.
When you steal something you deprive someone else of usin
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, the guy who bled on the police officers was charged with "destruction of police property," since they couldn't get his blood out of their uniforms.
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She is simply whining that you didn't buy it from the correct middleman. It's an obviously outdated notion these days. It doesn't even reflect reality 30 years ago never mind now.
She is simply emanating the death throes of a dying dinosaur.
Lobotomy (Score:2)
Sorry, citizen, it was not lawful for you to view that content. Nurse, scalpel please.
Please Change the Language (Score:2)
I wonder who you have to be to request to have the word "steal" changed so that it rolls in a behavior that you don't like. I hope the answer isn't "The President of Bell Media".
I suggest we all buy a dictionary, plop a bookmark at the word "steal" and mail it to him. Half a million dictionaries should be a poignant message.
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Her.
Slander laws (Score:4, Interesting)
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The sooner companies realise that IP addresses are not "in" a country the better. IP addresses are not designed to betray your physical location, and nor should they.
It's not stealing. (Score:5, Informative)
It might be a copyright violation however, since the intent of the distributor is to offer the content only in the USA.
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Is it the customer who's causing the copyright violation? Or is it Netflix, for feeding the content to somebody not coming from the US?
I would assume that Netflix would be considered sufficiently diligent in having attempted to feed it only to US-based IP addresses, but perhaps they have a case against the VPN provider? Or against the customer themselves, not for the copyright per se but for violating the terms of use (which presumably say "You will only use this from America, and not attempt to fool us wit
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Since when does anyone give a crap how the vendor meant for you to use the thing they sold you?
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It's not "how" it's "where". Copyright holders of movies want to sell at different prices in different countries.
When you are paying for Netflix Canada, you are not paying for content exclusive to the US.
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A company can't do this with anything else we buy, so why should it be able to for digital content? If I buy a pair of jeans there is no way someone can stop me from taking them to another country.
The only rule being broken here is that you have to lie about your address when you sign up for US Netflix. That's not a criminal issue, it's a civil one.
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The thing is that you are not buying Netflix in the US. You are buying it in Canada. And by using a VPN service, you are faking that you are travelling to the USA (where, by Netflix standards, you have the right to more shows). Netflix has distribution rights for the USA only on certain shows. By using VPN, you and/or Netflix are doing a copyright violation. Again, that is not stealing.
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Who implied that is what is going on. Netflix US is presumably getting paid for US content, by Canadians. Netflix is entirely capable of preventing a Canadian Netflix account working on a US server. If they don't limit access in that way then they are explicitly supporting the practice.
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It might be a copyright violation however, since the intent of the distributor is to offer the content only in the USA.
Netflix cannot legally sell you the content that is licensed for US distribution if you are in Canada. By circumventing the access controls (use of a VPN to masquerade as being in the US) you are obtaining content that you have not paid for. I think it is a fallacy to think that most of society would not call that "stealing", even if a smaller fraction would consider it significant. /. is a VERY self-selected population and sampling opinion here and extrapolating that to society as a whole is begging for er
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Stealing is taking something from someone. Violating copyright is another issue but it is not stealing. Also a rapist is not a stealer even if they are both evil.
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Netflix cannot legally sell you the content that is licensed for US distribution if you are in Canada. By circumventing the access controls (use of a VPN to masquerade as being in the US) you are obtaining content that you have not paid for.
You do need a working netflix account, a paid one, I assume? Or do Americans just get Netflix for free? In which case the content has been paid for. What's not been paid for is the extortionist in Canada that said to Netflix "I can make them bleed harder, if you let me - and we can split the difference!".
It used to be the case that tax collectors paid the King for the privilege and then got free reign to squeeze the populace for as much as they could. Quite a lot of uprisisings started that way. But tax col
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But the Canadians are obtaining content that they have paid for. They paid Netflix for content.
If that same Canadian takes their laptop to the US, and watches Netflix they receive US Netflix. I think it is a fallacy to think that most of society would consider accessing a service at one geographic location legal and at another "stealing"
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But the Canadians are obtaining content that they have paid for. They paid Netflix for content.
They cannot buy from Netflix that which Netflix has not sold them. Netflix cannot distribute in Canada things that they don't have a Canadian distribution right for. While you, and others, claim that "they paid for Netflix content", they only paid for the content that Netflix could legally sell them. And indeed, distribution of copyright material without a license is a crime.
A good analogy is a 15 year old walking into a convenience store, tossing $10 on the counter, and walking out with a case of beer.
Canadian Bacon? (Score:2)
Yeah, but what if a Canadian had a friend buy an Egg McMuffin in the US and then sent it to them to be consumed in Canada. Before you answer, I should remind you that the standard Egg McMuffin includes *Canadian* bacon on it, so be careful how you word your response. ;-)
LOL (Score:3)
Bell, talking about "socially acceptable behaviour" and "theft".
Has anyone had a look at Bell Canada's pricing and services lately? They epitomize theft.
Region locking is socially unacceptable (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe it's time for people like her to join us in the 21st century.
Demonizing for fun and profit (Score:3)
We don't like Canadians VPNing Netflix content it but it's really not that bad. So, let's call it stealing and make it sound worse than it is. Like calling abortion murder. Demonize the things you don't like.
Bell runs a competing streaming service... (Score:5, Informative)
What the article neglects to mention is that Bell recently started a competing streaming service called CraveTV. They have licensed some shows that are available on the US Netflix, so the only way for Canadians to watch them is to subscribe to CraveTV or use a VPN to access the American version of Netflix.
Where things get really stupid is that Bell's $4 CraveTV service requires potential customers to subscribe to a Bell (or partner) cable or satellite TV plan in an effort to protect their traditional business. Have an OTA antenna on your roof instead? Tough. You don't qualify for their service.
Mrs Turcke's Company could copy Valve's model (Score:2)
Moron thinks all crimes are theft (Score:3)
They are illegally importing.
I am sick and tired of shmucks that rip people off trying to 'upgrade' the crime of not being ripped off into 'theft'.
Thank God! (Score:2)
Someone is finally thinking of the childr^H^H^H^H^H^H cable executives!
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/Oblg. South Park Cable Company [youtube.com]
Is it stealing if I watch US netflix while in US? (Score:2)
If you want to see stealing... (Score:2)
Pot meet kettle (Score:2)
>> "It has to become socially unacceptable to admit to another human being that you are VPNing into U.S. Netflix"
No, it has to become socially unacceptable for companies to be racist, and/or monopolist, and/or to try to socially engineer our view of moarality, and/or to attempt to propagandise and demonize peoples attempts to fight for equal treatment, and/or to create artificial marketplaces just to be able to unfairly overcharge people based on where they live.
Grey market nonsense (Score:2)
Infringement is not stealing (Score:2)
You can't have them back! (Score:2)
... Canadians are 'stealing' US Netflix ...
Damn straight! And we ain't giving those shows back neither, suckas!
If you want your Game of Thrones, you're going to have to come and get it! Ha!
So long as you have to log into a Netflix account. (Score:3)
...It's not possible to "steal" Netflix. All users are paying for it.
Let me guess... (Score:3)
Hilarious.. (Score:3)
Like many here, the socially unacceptable portion makes me laugh so hard. I live in China, I'd gladly pay for content I happily enjoy -- but if it's not available legally for me within reasonable methods, then fuck it, VPN first, piracy second. I found myself watching lots of Hulu content at one point and tried to upgrade to their premium service.......had no feasible way whatsoever, even via VPN, because I was trying to pay with a Canadian credit card and mailed them on the topic to see if I could legally pay for it, answer was "no, it's not possible.". If people can't pay for content and watch it legally what do these corporations expect?
I'd say it's more than socially acceptable, it's socially desirable. Many I've met who haven't got the technical means to access particular content wants to know how. That's just how it is. Companies like this and dumb bitches who complain about circumvention tactics in order to access content need to learn to deal with it by making content easily accessible for all..then, perhaps, they'll have at least one leg to stand on when soap boxing.
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Think of it as a video version of an H1B visa (yes, I realize it's Canada, not the US). People are using the VPN to access content not available otherwise, just like an H1B visa is to obtain labor not available otherwise at starvation wages.
FIFY.