Comment by DigitalSea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DigitalSea | Hacker News Reader

I can understand why movie studios and copyright holders in the US would be worried, Popcorn Time lets you watch movies for free much like a traditional streaming service like Netflix offers. However, as an Australian, I see it very differently.

In Australia there is nothing that comes anywhere near as close as Netflix. We have cable TV in the form of Foxtel, but the price is about $110 AUD per month to get the good movie channels and channels with popular shows on them. Then we have the up and coming Fetch TV service which offers a somewhat good alternative to cable, but nothing like Netflix or Popcorn Time does. There is no online service like Netflix in Australia.

Sure, the price point is one thing, but I think Spotify has shown that an all you can eat premium service at a decent price can help reduce piracy. When Spotify launched in Australia a little while ago, I stopped downloading music because Spotify was faster and more convenient, many of my friends did the same.

Americans have a good range of choice when it comes to legal options for movies and TV shows. People in Australia, New Zealand and other countries, not so much and this is why torrents and applications like Popcorn Time will continue to be the best alternative until content licencing for music and movies/tv is sorted.

You can quite easily purchase Netflix in Australia if you feel bad about piracy, and also dislike the options available to Australians. I'm unsure on the legality (probably a grey area), but the point is you can pay money and support the service. (Edit: using a DNS service like Getflix.)

I thought they also block Australian CC's?

I bought an American Netflix account with a Canadian credit card via VPN back in the day. Not sure if that applies to aussies. They might have started checking for this since then as well.

Even though we now have Netflix in Canada, the selection is awful compared to the American one.

From what I know they do not seem to do this. Perhaps they block Australian debit cards? Or only certain CCs.

Nay. They accept mine (CBA Mastercard) just fine :)

When I signed up it only required the credit card details and the billing post code. Luckily, the French post code is the same format as the US.

There is a bill to remove geo-blocking on sites like netflix in Australia. Currently though you could theoretically get 2 years in jail for the usual unauthorized access or modifying communication device identifier. It would be unlikely that you would get charged as it would require netflix to request it and, even more unlikely with the current political climate, it also requires the police and prosecuters to pursue it.

That bill has always confused me. How would an Australian law be enforced on foreign entities such a Netflix?

Keep in mind this isn't targeted only at netflix but also at other provider that do price geo-locking and may have local support.

Also consider I could sign up to netflix with my credit card 'not get access' and initiate a charge back (maybe even after a couple of months of watching through a vpn), the pressure would be exerted through visa/mastercard which australia can somewhat pressure (as they have local assets).

Naturally that goes to the point were Netflix refuses Oz customers the ability to get there service at all and misses out on any part of the Aus market or they commit whole hog and give Aus everything. The other thing to remember is that other small countries may initiate similar policies so it might not be just Aus who misses out.

Easy. It's legalese and much more subtle than this, but the general principle is :

"Either pay this or we instruct any bank with offices in Australia to refund all payments made to netflix at 150% retroactively for 10 years or cease operation in Australia"

This gives the banks themselves an incentive to go after netflix.

Will they go this far for netflix ? No way, I think, but that's one principle behind international enforcement.

Purchase easily and purchase legally are two different things. It still doesn't solve the problem though, does it? You're still breaking the law in some capacity and paying for the content legally when you're skirting the law doesn't make it any more justified, but neither does downloading it for free. Sure, you're paying for Netflix but you have to go through a VPN provider to do it properly and even then, VPN tunnelling can be very unreliable and slow. Australian Internet is very limited in terms of speed and bandwidth, the average Internet connection in a lot of the heavily populated parts of Australia is still slow and unreliable ADSL, not fibre like the rest of the developed world.

Are we certain it is illegal, though?

Grey/parallel imports for physical goods are not illegal in Australia. That is why I can buy a cheap DSLR camera that's imported from Hong Kong and sold by a Melbourne importer instead of paying twice the price for the "Australian" version at a local camera shop.

Netflix is actually very easy to set up, there are $2/month DNS services that make it very simple for even the technically inept to configure their Apple TV / iPad / computer to pick up Netflix in Australia. The combined cost of Netflix + DNS service is far cheaper than any local option, and the quantity of content is far greater.

The speed is not really relevant, I think. Whether it's legal or not — and whether it's likely to be enforced — the interesting question.

So simply analyse the situation a little bit. I am not a lawyer, and this is not a legal opinion, but I'm also not completely unaware of the law.

1) you are lying to netflix, which has you agree to a contract stating you will only watch from within the US.

You are violating a contract you've agreed to.

2) Netflix checks this, and you are explicitly using technical measures to successfully lie to netflix about your location, purposefully deceive a party you've contracted with in order to get out from under contract terms.

I believe this is fraud. If netflix can convince the police to take the case, you could go to jail for this. Advantage : only netflix can try to make them take the case, and they're unlikely to do so.

3) the content you're watching is licenced, with a licence stating it's watch within the US only.

This is copyright violation, or it's more popular term : piracy.

I would argue that watching netflix violating and circumventing their access controls is worse than torrenting.

> I would argue that watching netflix violating and circumventing their access controls is worse than torrenting.

I don't know if I would consider it worse. To me it feels like the morally better of the two — at least you are contributing some money towards the shows you like to watch, even if not through the proper channels.

I would also argue that Netflix could likely make it harder to circumvent their access controls, but it is probably not in their interest to do so. If it were up to Netflix, I suspect it would be available globally — Netflix only has to enforce the minimum required geoblocking to satisfy the rights holders. If some people get around this, all it means is more business and more mind share for Netflix. (And arguably more business for the rights holders.)

> Australian Internet is very limited in terms of speed and bandwidth, the average Internet connection in a lot of the heavily populated parts of Australia is still slow and unreliable ADSL, not fibre like the rest of the developed world.

Curse our shortsighted government. http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/the-rise-and-fall-...

... and then you're paying to break different laws. I don't want just to not feel bad about privacy, I want the law to be on my side. More-so when I'm paying.

I live in Australia too and signed up for Netflix a few months ago. It's a bit of a hassle to signup and requires the use of a paid service to handle the DNS/location checks, but it does work very well.

I completely agree with you on Spotify, though it is annoying to see that the complete catalog isn't available to an Australian account. I've considered starting over with a US-based account using gift cards, but haven't tried it yet.

Is Spotify cost prohibitive with Australian mobile data plans though? I know with the amount of music I listen to, my plan would be quickly reached if I swapped to Spotify instead of my local music.

Also, the network availability (especially on train networks) where I'm generally listening to music probably means that my song is going to cut out.

Around the house, Spotify is great (or an alternative like the just launched iTunes Radio) but out and about I still think there's a big market for local music files.

As long as you sync the songs first you don't need an internet connection to use spotify on the move.

The solution is downloaded playlists. It's annoying because you can't download an album, but have to make a playlist instead. It does work great though.

Yeah it's not a huge deal. I've actually found Australian mobile (along with golf courses) to be one of the few things that compare favorably to the US in terms of price. And like the other poster said, you can just mark your playlists to be offline and they will download/update whenever you hook up to wifi.

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