10 ms·

You are aware that watching netflix outside of it's service area is piracy, right ? Paying the wrong amount, or one way or the other not following the terms of

by waps 13y ago

You are aware that watching netflix outside of it's service area is piracy, right ? Paying the wrong amount, or one way or the other not following the terms of a licence (such as watching netflix outside of the US), is just as much piracy as bittorrent is.

woah 13y ago
That's absurd (not saying you're wrong, it's just an absurd state of affairs). All the more reason to just pirate the movies for real, instead of jumping through all the hoops, paying them money, and then being accused of "piracy" anyway.
- Fuxy 13y ago
  Why don't you like paying people to sue you? That's basically what it boils down to you jump through a lot of hoops in an attempt to get it legally they take your money accuse you of piracy and sue you.
davidw 13y ago
I'm guessing they're not really going to complain too much.
- waps 13y ago
  Well the party that's "getting hurt" is not so much netflix, but the copyright owner.
baddox 13y ago
That's an important point, and one that I suspect is lost on many IP law advocates even around here.
brownbat 13y ago
> You are aware that watching netflix outside of it's service area is piracy, right ? I'm not so sure. "Piracy" isn't a well defined legal term, so I'm guessing we're talking about copyright infringement here. But US copyright primarily extends from US laws, which are hard to break if you're in a foreign jurisdiction. Treaties like the TRIPS agreement extend copyright (and other IP) rules and enforcement to foreign jurisdictions, but it's not altogether clear that TRIPS would require every jurisdiction to prosecute someone who receives a stream from Netflix through an additional hop. (In fact, it obviously doesn't apply everywhere, as some jurisdictions give complete waivers to copyright infringement for personal use.) More to the point, with streaming, it's not really clear the user has made any copy that would be required for the violation in most jurisdictions. I don't know the situation in Italy, but it's at least not a foregone conclusion that using a VPN to watch Hulu or Netflix violates anything aside from a terms of service agreement. An unenforced TOS provision hardly has the same legal heft as copyright infringement (unless the CFAA is thrown at you, but that's a whole different animal...)
- harywilke 13y ago
  "But US copyright primarily extends from US laws, which are hard to break if you're in a foreign jurisdiction." well. sometimes the US has strange notions of 'foreign jurisdiction'. for example if a US citizen were to order a drink at a bar overseas and that drink happens to contain rum from cuba. you've just violated US law. that will be $250,000 and 10 years in prison. [1] see this bit from treasury.gov: "Transactions Involving Cuban-Origin Goods in Third Countries The question is often asked whether United States citizens or permanent resident aliens of the United States may legally purchase Cuban origin goods, including tobacco and alcohol products, in a third country for personal use outside the United States. The answer is no. The Regulations prohibit persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States from purchasing, transporting, importing, or otherwise dealing in or engaging in any transactions with respect to any merchandise outside the United States if such merchandise (1) is of Cuban origin; or (2) is or has been located in or transported from or through Cuba; or (3) is made or derived in whole or in part of any article which is the growth, produce or manufacture of Cuba. Thus, in the case of cigars, the prohibition extends to cigars manufactured in Cuba and sold in a third country and to cigars manufactured in a third country from tobacco grown in Cuba." [1] http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Documents/ccigar2.pdf http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Documents/...
- waps 13y ago
  Even if this argument holds water (and as a US citizen you're bound by US law whether or not you're in the US), you still agreed to a contract that you wouldn't do this. Now given that contract you agreed to with netflix, I think is pretty safe to say that you're violating the law in every last jurisdiction on earth. Sure they won't sue you for it, generally speaking. But you're definitely violating the law.
  - brownbat 13y ago
    'Bound by US law in any jurisdiction' is too hasty a generalization. Some laws, tax laws, apply regardless of jurisdiction, because jurisdiction is found by some connection of yourself to the state. But if you commit murder in Canada, that's a violation of Canadian, not US law (unless you're a member of the US armed forces, in which case it's a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice). But more importantly, it's not illegal to break a contract. You can't even get punitive damages for a breach. One example illustrating this is US Naval Institute v. Charter Communications, 936 F. 2d 692 - Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit 1991. Judge Posner explains why the law favors this in "Economic Analysis and the Law" as follows: "Suppose I sign a contract to deliver 100,000 custom-ground widgets at $.10 apiece to A, for use in his boiler factory. After I have delivered 10,000, B comes to me, explains that he desperately needs 25,000 custom-ground widgets at once since otherwise he will be forced to close his pianola factory at great cost, and offers me $.15 apiece for 25,000 widgets. I sell him the widgets and as a result do not complete timely delivery to A, who sustains $1000 in damages from my breach. Having obtained an additional profit of $1250 on the sale to B, I am better off even after reimbursing A for his loss. Society is also better off. Since B was willing to pay me $.15 per widget, it must mean that each widget was worth at least $.15 to him. But it was worth only $.14 to A – $.10, what he paid, plus $.04 ($1000 divided by 25,000), his expected profit. Thus the breach resulted in a transfer of the 25,000 widgets from a lower valued to a higher valued use."
lotsofmangos 13y ago
Attempting to pay for a service is not just as much piracy as using bittorent is. Pirating content != Ignoring region restrictions, otherwise buying a film on holiday and then watching it on a region unlocked dvd player would be piracy and it clearly isn't. It is breach of contract, but that does not by itself constitute piracy just because it is to do with media.
lma21 13y ago
What if I'm an American living abroad for a medium-term period? Am I still not allowed to access my Netflix account through VPN?
- maxerickson 13y ago
  You'd be violating the Terms of service. One salient portion would be "You may view a movie or TV show through the Netflix service only in geographic locations where we offer our service and have licensed such movie or TV show." That doesn't talk about the address where you established your account, it's clearly about where you are doing the viewing.
  - darkarmani 13y ago
    > only in geographic locations where we offer our service It sounds like they offer their service anywhere if you use the right VPN.
    - maxerickson 13y ago
      I don't understand your point.
logfromblammo 13y ago
The service area of Netflix is "computers connected to the Internet". Despite efforts that seem to indicate otherwise, IP addresses do not necessarily correlate with specific places or people. The sooner everyone understands this, the better off we will all be.
stephen_g 13y ago
A report commissioned by the Australian Government actually recommended that laws be amended here and this practice encouraged, because of the way companies don't provide content in Australia or often charge more than double than what you get in the US for no extra service (obviously there are tariffs, taxes, distribution, etc. but that should be 15-20% extra, not over 100%). For example, when Adobe CS used to come in boxes, it was literally cheaper to fly return to the US and buy it there. They weren't providing local support or anything - just phone and online support from the same offshore call centres they use for other markets.

by waps 13y ago

woah 13y ago

That's absurd (not saying you're wrong, it's just an absurd state of affairs). All the more reason to just pirate the movies for real, instead of jumping through all the hoops, paying them money, and then being accused of "piracy" anyway.

Fuxy 13y ago
Why don't you like paying people to sue you? That's basically what it boils down to you jump through a lot of hoops in an attempt to get it legally they take your money accuse you of piracy and sue you.

davidw 13y ago

I'm guessing they're not really going to complain too much.

waps 13y ago
Well the party that's "getting hurt" is not so much netflix, but the copyright owner.

baddox 13y ago

That's an important point, and one that I suspect is lost on many IP law advocates even around here.

brownbat 13y ago

> You are aware that watching netflix outside of it's service area is piracy, right ? I'm not so sure. "Piracy" isn't a well defined legal term, so I'm guessing we're talking about copyright infringement here. But US copyright primarily extends from US laws, which are hard to break if you're in a foreign jurisdiction. Treaties like the TRIPS agreement extend copyright (and other IP) rules and enforcement to foreign jurisdictions, but it's not altogether clear that TRIPS would require every jurisdiction to prosecute someone who receives a stream from Netflix through an additional hop. (In fact, it obviously doesn't apply everywhere, as some jurisdictions give complete waivers to copyright infringement for personal use.) More to the point, with streaming, it's not really clear the user has made any copy that would be required for the violation in most jurisdictions. I don't know the situation in Italy, but it's at least not a foregone conclusion that using a VPN to watch Hulu or Netflix violates anything aside from a terms of service agreement. An unenforced TOS provision hardly has the same legal heft as copyright infringement (unless the CFAA is thrown at you, but that's a whole different animal...)

harywilke 13y ago
"But US copyright primarily extends from US laws, which are hard to break if you're in a foreign jurisdiction." well. sometimes the US has strange notions of 'foreign jurisdiction'. for example if a US citizen were to order a drink at a bar overseas and that drink happens to contain rum from cuba. you've just violated US law. that will be $250,000 and 10 years in prison. [1] see this bit from treasury.gov: "Transactions Involving Cuban-Origin Goods in Third Countries The question is often asked whether United States citizens or permanent resident aliens of the United States may legally purchase Cuban origin goods, including tobacco and alcohol products, in a third country for personal use outside the United States. The answer is no. The Regulations prohibit persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States from purchasing, transporting, importing, or otherwise dealing in or engaging in any transactions with respect to any merchandise outside the United States if such merchandise (1) is of Cuban origin; or (2) is or has been located in or transported from or through Cuba; or (3) is made or derived in whole or in part of any article which is the growth, produce or manufacture of Cuba. Thus, in the case of cigars, the prohibition extends to cigars manufactured in Cuba and sold in a third country and to cigars manufactured in a third country from tobacco grown in Cuba." [1] http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Documents/ccigar2.pdf http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Documents/...
waps 13y ago
Even if this argument holds water (and as a US citizen you're bound by US law whether or not you're in the US), you still agreed to a contract that you wouldn't do this. Now given that contract you agreed to with netflix, I think is pretty safe to say that you're violating the law in every last jurisdiction on earth. Sure they won't sue you for it, generally speaking. But you're definitely violating the law.
- brownbat 13y ago
  'Bound by US law in any jurisdiction' is too hasty a generalization. Some laws, tax laws, apply regardless of jurisdiction, because jurisdiction is found by some connection of yourself to the state. But if you commit murder in Canada, that's a violation of Canadian, not US law (unless you're a member of the US armed forces, in which case it's a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice). But more importantly, it's not illegal to break a contract. You can't even get punitive damages for a breach. One example illustrating this is US Naval Institute v. Charter Communications, 936 F. 2d 692 - Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit 1991. Judge Posner explains why the law favors this in "Economic Analysis and the Law" as follows: "Suppose I sign a contract to deliver 100,000 custom-ground widgets at $.10 apiece to A, for use in his boiler factory. After I have delivered 10,000, B comes to me, explains that he desperately needs 25,000 custom-ground widgets at once since otherwise he will be forced to close his pianola factory at great cost, and offers me $.15 apiece for 25,000 widgets. I sell him the widgets and as a result do not complete timely delivery to A, who sustains $1000 in damages from my breach. Having obtained an additional profit of $1250 on the sale to B, I am better off even after reimbursing A for his loss. Society is also better off. Since B was willing to pay me $.15 per widget, it must mean that each widget was worth at least $.15 to him. But it was worth only $.14 to A – $.10, what he paid, plus $.04 ($1000 divided by 25,000), his expected profit. Thus the breach resulted in a transfer of the 25,000 widgets from a lower valued to a higher valued use."

lotsofmangos 13y ago

Attempting to pay for a service is not just as much piracy as using bittorent is. Pirating content != Ignoring region restrictions, otherwise buying a film on holiday and then watching it on a region unlocked dvd player would be piracy and it clearly isn't. It is breach of contract, but that does not by itself constitute piracy just because it is to do with media.

lma21 13y ago

What if I'm an American living abroad for a medium-term period? Am I still not allowed to access my Netflix account through VPN?

maxerickson 13y ago
You'd be violating the Terms of service. One salient portion would be "You may view a movie or TV show through the Netflix service only in geographic locations where we offer our service and have licensed such movie or TV show." That doesn't talk about the address where you established your account, it's clearly about where you are doing the viewing.
- darkarmani 13y ago
  > only in geographic locations where we offer our service It sounds like they offer their service anywhere if you use the right VPN.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    I don't understand your point.

logfromblammo 13y ago

The service area of Netflix is "computers connected to the Internet". Despite efforts that seem to indicate otherwise, IP addresses do not necessarily correlate with specific places or people. The sooner everyone understands this, the better off we will all be.

stephen_g 13y ago

A report commissioned by the Australian Government actually recommended that laws be amended here and this practice encouraged, because of the way companies don't provide content in Australia or often charge more than double than what you get in the US for no extra service (obviously there are tariffs, taxes, distribution, etc. but that should be 15-20% extra, not over 100%). For example, when Adobe CS used to come in boxes, it was literally cheaper to fly return to the US and buy it there. They weren't providing local support or anything - just phone and online support from the same offshore call centres they use for other markets.