I honestly don't think it is a complicated problem to solve when it comes to paid services. I'm making an assumption here, but I imagine as a matter of policy, every bank keeps on record if a bank account is local or foreign owned. And I'm also making an assumption that it wouldn't be a big reach for banks to share that information with payment services.

Following that, if you're using a local UK bank account, you should be able to access UK structured services. Yes, I'm sure it's not as simple as that, but I can't see such a system requiring a radical overhaul of how services are distributed. Of course dual passport holders will be net winners, but no system is perfect, and I can't imagine many people going to the trouble of getting a US passport just to watch reruns of The Sopranos.

You are deeply under-appreciating the non-technical complexity of this space.

Let's assume media rights are sold on exclusive regional basis. If I own the rights to distribute a show in Latvia, nobody else has that right. Meaning when Netflix buys the rights to stream that same show in the US, it is explicitly prohibited from streaming it to other countries because those rights belong to others (eg, if Netflix allows even a US citizen to stream that show in Latvia, that harms my right as the licensee there.)

I would be surprised if the contract language has provisions for "well, if a US person is in another country you can still stream it to them."

So to do what you're proposing, Netflix has to either put themselves in legal jeopardy by violating the contracts they signed limiting distribution to the US (I know you think it's fine but I bet their lawyers don't think it is) or they would have to pay much more for international distribution - meaning, if NF is allows to stream to everywhere, they have to pay the creators much more because the creators won't be able to sell to others (like my Latvian company.)

So you can see that Netflix's "cost" of making you happy is either being sued into oblivious or dramatically increasing their operating costs. Now, if there were so many people who'd sign up for NF if this was available, they'd certainly do it. But I am guessing this affects such a small minority of their users, and that an even smaller minority cancels subscriptions because of this, that it's just bad ROI and they don't do it.

I would think the law is more concerned that the UK version of the service, is being paid for by a UK account registered at a UK address, and paying UK fees. It's still being distributed to the UK as far as every financial transaction is concerned.

But I see your point, it's a license issue. I guess Netflix's lawyers should sharpen their pencils, because what you described is already happening, because despite their best efforts, the VPN's have managed to remain ahead.

Particular because the licence is functionally based upon where the eyeballs are physically located at the time the content enters them.

Glad you see my point. This article is about NF making this even harder, so it sounds like they are on it.

It is never about blocking 100% of things - if your wall is 99.99999% effective then you can claim to have done what you need to do to be compliant with your contract.

> I'm making an assumption here, but I imagine as a matter of policy, every bank keeps on record if a bank account is local or foreign owned.

Nope.

There are also some territories where there are significant cross country pollination of bank accounts - Australia and New Zealand are good examples. The EU is attempting to force cross territory banking without any limitations. Virtually nobody in the Middle East has a bank account in their actual country of residence.

Content producers have to sue or press charges where the pirates live, not where they set up the account.

> people who sell them media rights likely insist on tight region controls (or, would charge NF a lot more for "global" rights vs "US" rights.)

Netflix could tell them to pound sand. If those distributors want to sell their product, they’ll have to bend. What’s the alternative? Movie theaters? Netflix is such a market mover now, they can play a lot harder than in their early days.

> Netflix is such a market mover now, they can play a lot harder than in their early days.

They are no longer a market mover. Disney is.

Netflix should've "pounded everyone" five years ago when they were the only player in town. Now they don't even have content to show (my feed is 80% Netflix productions and 19% 10-20 year old movies).

Netflix were not ever, ever, ever the only player in town.

Ever.

They were the only one that mattered, for a long time.

> Let's say Netflix has to chose between two problems to solve: secure distribution for desired content, and ensuring that you can view that content wherever you are.

Security of distributing content has literally nothing to do with this. It has been shown times and again that Netflix reduced piracy in countries where it started operations.

Region blocking is the product of greed and shortsightedness by content owners.

This seems unlikely. In many cases multiple companies may own the rights to the same show for different regions. Of course there is going to be an X% discount on the contracts for Netflix if Netflix can prove they are not letting their content be seen out of region. Probably worth much more than the 1% of people who switch countries AND have picky preferences on languages/subscribing to multiple services.

> This seems unlikely.

It doesn't

> In many cases multiple companies may own the rights to the same show for different regions

Yes. And the only reason for many of those "different right in different regions" is greed and shortsightedness.

> Probably worth much more than the 1% of people who switch countries AND have picky preferences on languages/subscribing to multiple services.

You're completely ignoring all the other people who are willing to pay money and watch content that is region-locked for no reason. A German will happily watch original content from the states. Because it's not middle ages anymore, and people are quite happy watching content in multiple languages, because they know them.

In this case "securing" means "obtaining" (as in "secure the rights to") not some sort of DRM.

It is piracy for Netflix to show content in regions it is not licensed to