Netflix CEO Wants to Make VPN Use Obsolete

Following Netflix’s launch in Australia, a region that was previously full of Netflix ‘VPN pirates’, company CEO Reed Hastings has said that he aims to make the VPN loophole redundant by offering all available content to all locales.

Though many countries around the world have access to Netflix, the films and TV shows they are able to watch are restricted by geographical licensing agreements. For this reason, the US Netflix remains a goldmine, streaming content that is not available in other parts of the world.

Hastings says, “The basic solution is for Netflix to get global and have its content be the same all around the world so there’s no incentive to [use a VPN]. Then we can work on the more important part which is piracy.”

“The VPN thing is a small little asterisk compared to piracy,” Hastings adds. “Piracy is really the problem around the world.”

The idea, in theory, would be mana to all non-US-based Netflix customers, but it is wholly dependent on Hollywood adopting global licencing deals. If pitched to studios as a fix for piracy, they may be receptive.

“The key thing about piracy is that some fraction of it is because [users] couldn’t get the content. That part we can fix. Some part of piracy however is because they just don’t want to pay. That’s a harder part. As an industry, we need to fix global content,” Hastings said.

Source: TorrentFreak