it’s been a thing for forever but the past couple of years VPN adds seem to be everywhere, usually explicitly talking about using them to watch stuff that is region locked. i assumed with it being much more known to the public it was just a matter of time till that didn’t work but as far as i’m aware none of the big streaming services have done anything to prevent it. do they not care? is it just something they can’t do anything about so they roll with it?
Some do, Amazon prime gives a popup to turn off your vpn, similar to reddits “security team” popup.
I have use a VPN for several years to watch cycling coverage. It was partly for financial reasons (only pay 1 subscription fee instead of 3), but it was mainly because the site I used had the broadest coverage.
The parent company for that service pulled the plug on that channel and incorporated that programming into one of their existing streaming services. In doing so, they cut off access to anyone outside the region. Before I paid the subscription using a US credit card. Now that is not allowed. It’s turned my cycling watching into a giant mess.
I have also noticed that more sites are denying access via a VPN. It has almost gotten to the point where I am considering dropping the VPN service because it has lost much of its value for me.
Yes. Because they have license deals based on area. And they have to make a reasonable effort at least to enforce that.
They would not be able to get those deals if everyone everywhere could access content that was supposed to be locked to a certain area.
I don’t think I’ve read anything more incorrect. If there was no disadvantage, then they would make it available for all countries and locations.
Licensing and rights holders are a huge market for content makers, and they make money by selling rights for access, distribution, streaming in different locations. Royalties paid for actors, musicians, artists etc etc may change heavily based on viewing location and they would not be happy about that. There’s more in depth background processes, but I’ll leave that.
If rights holders/buyers find out that services are lacking in blocking these connections via VPN they might file law suits to claim loss of earnings: for example where license costs less in lower average incomes countries but where higher income earners are using VPNs to access. Evident in the price differences between locations. Even “original” productions “produced” by platforms have a host of different stakeholders that may recover residuals based on viewer and location.
Using “well people will access it, so it’s not a problem” doesn’t really fit the bill for many other hopping actives to view material you wouldn’t normally be able to.
So while it seems like you provided a good answer, it seems like you’ve answered a question that you don’t actually know the answer to.
that makes sense. i thought about how since to do anything you still need to be paying for their services and that might be good but since the way copyright laws work here is so intense there might be some issue i didn’t know of
oh okay, thank you for explaining i took the other answer at face value but this was more what i expected coming in. do you think the current easy ability to use them anyway is going anywhere?
The guy was incorrect, see above for more info.
No problem, I think it’s going into quite a bit of decline.
With VPN providers, they usually use a range of IP addresses that are associated with day centres or businesses and many people connect via them. With this knowledge, providers can look at the connections/requests from various ‘people’ and conclude they are not legitimate. With dedicated IP VPN it’s more difficult, but kind of similar.
They’ll also be looking for where you signed up for the services, where you access them and how often. Especially as they restrict viewing from multiple households.
For example if you sign up for Netflix in the UK but seem to jump between the UK and USA Netflix regularly it’s likely to be flagged.