Hacker News Reader

Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

Can't they just discriminate based on your billing address?

Thats the obvious solution, though how would that affect people using Netlfix while traveling?

For example, if you're locked to the US region and watch something that is only available in the US while visiting, say, the UK — would that break any of Netflix's license agreements?

This whole topic is probably not inititated by Netflix, but by the contracts they sign with the distributors.

Distributors don't care about this, they care about geographically determined licenses. And apparently they want to see that this is technically enforced to some degree.

Same thing with app stores.

Try to buy some apps in one country and download them again while in another.

Last time I read about this it wasn't possible to do so.

Not true (at least with Apple), my main Apple ID is Italian, but I live in the UK, and I use with no problem...

Can you delete an app bought in the italian app store while in Italy and then install the same app via the UK app store while in UK?

This was the issue I read about, just the example was from a guy in Europe that moved back to Canada.

Apple does not care one tiny bit where you are when making purchases. All you need is an account with a valid payment method in that country. Your account is linked to one country, regardless of where you are or what SIM card is in your phone.

That only applies if you change the country your account is linked to (since for some reason in 2016 most companies have yet not figured out people move...), but all you need is a valid payment method for the country you wish to use and you can use that account anywhere you want

> how would that affect people using Netlfix while traveling?

"Tough"

Amazon streaming only works when you're in your home country, no matter where your billing address is. At least for Amazon UK. When I'm in America, I have to VPN back to the UK to download content for the flight back.

No, it all still comes back to licensing. They offer different catalogs per country because they are not legally allowed to distribute certain content in certain places, because they don't have the rights. If they go "oh you live in the US, have some US content while on vacation in AU!", then they are actively distributing that content in AU. If they don't have rights to do that, it's illegal.

They'll never do this based on billing address because they don't care where you're FROM, they care where you ARE.

I wish they would do that. I have many friends who share accounts internationally (I'm one of them, I live in Denmark and my account is shared with a friend in the Netherlands and a couple who lives in Portugal) and this would mean that they no longer need a vpn to get content from catalogues better than their countries'. The Portuguese catalogue in particular is incredibly limited.

If they did that all it'd is have one of our mates living in the US to make us an account and we'd never have to VPN again.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com