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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

Netflix blocks PIA, a VPN, from accessing its servers. Rights holders’ unchecked power is the problem. Abstracting their power through net neutrality terminology distracts from their damage and promotes their cause.

If you want a shortcut to the solution, it includes “how could I make Netflix indfifferent as to how I access their content?”

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Netflix blocks virtually all VPS provider IP ranges, so you can’t even host your own VPN to work around it.

> Netflix blocks virtually all VPS provider IP ranges

Netflix has done a terrific job of deflecting the issue from themselves onto ISPs. Yet Netflix et al support rights holders through their policies. It’s a complicated battlefield.

True, Netflix first got popular in my country by people using VPN to access it. Now that they operate locally and are a part of the establishment they've been diligent in squashing VPNs.

I’ve been using a VPN on an EC2 server for over a year with Netflix with no issues. I think the trick is to be the only one on the IP address and to use the same IP address frequently.

It’s an interesting problem because really, Netflix just needs to pretend to care, enough to satisfy the rightsholders they are buying licenses from. At one point, there were millions of users in Australia even though Netflix didn’t even have a presence there.

I'm really interested to see how they accomplished this. Considering PIA puts up new nodes pretty quickly, and doesn't have one congruent address space, how does Netflix detect PIA or other vpn users?

Probably by doing the opposite: Allow Home ISP IP spaces only and block everything else.

I use VPNs like PIA all the time to leech movies from nflx.

The trick is to change your user agent string and make it totally dynamic. Seems to throw off their models.

Netflix is the problem. Nobody is forcing them to implement a VPN check.

Rights holder want this. Netflix just delivers.

From your own comment it sounds like rights holders are forcing them to implement a VPN check..?

No. Right holders want this. Netflix could just say no. Of course some stuff might not be available then, but at least their integrity would be intact.

Could we come up with a solution where Netflix's streaming catalog isn't even thinner?

I'm pretty sure if Netflix had their way they would not have spent resources on doing a VPN check.

Why do they have to enforce VPN check for Netflix originals? It seems that Netflix does not own rights for Netflix originals? Wouldn't it be easier to simply say some videos have restrictions but these videos do not?

> Wouldn't it be easier to simply say some videos have restrictions but these videos do not

No. Restricting everything is easier than checking if a video needs to be restricted.

A lot of "Netflix Originals" are just shows they've brought over from overseas. They will be rights restricted in their home countries still. I don't even know what the Netflix Original logo means anymore.

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