No more House of Cards for Hongkongers. Subscribers to Nexflix will now only be able to watch content available in their home region, as proxies to access non-local content are to be blocked. BOOO!
The announcement comes only a week after the streaming giant boasted of its impressive reach to 190 countries and territories, including Hong Kong, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Hong Kong subscribers often resort to using proxies, or servers that grant access to non-local internet content, in order to watch some of Netflix’s most popular shows, such as House of Cards, Breaking Bad and Sherlock.
According to the SCMP, David Fullagar, Netflix’s vice-president of content delivery architecture (sweet title), wrote this in a blog post:
“If all of our content were globally available, there wouldn’t be a reason for members to use proxies or unblockers.” “[We] have a way to go before we can offer people the same films and TV series everywhere.”
Yeah, we get it. But how does that help us find out what evil deeds Frank Underwood is up to now?
Fullagar added that the company hopes to make their content available globally in the future. However, he stressed that they must respect and enforce content licensing by geographic location for now.
A Netflix spokesperson also defended the announcement:
“Using VPNs or proxies to virtually cross borders violates Netflix’s terms of use because of licensing restrictions on TV shows and movies.”
The company promised to crack down on proxies and unblockers over the next few weeks.
When Netflix made their initial announcement last week, they indicated that subscribers in certain countries would not have immediate access to all of their shows, but insisted they were working to try and rectify that.
Basically, they’re ruining our lives until further notice on the premise of being goody goodies.
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