nanog mailing list archives

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?


From: "tim () pelican org" <tim () pelican org>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2019 10:32:22 -0000 (GMT)

On Wednesday, 20 November, 2019 21:25, "William Herrin" <bill () herrin us> said:

This is why you don't go after Hulu. You go after the content owners who
conspired to compel Hulu to limit distribution in a way that tortiously
interferes with your contract with your eyeball customers.

Am I the only one who's baffled in the context of a paid service why so much focus is put on where the consumption 
takes place (hard), and so little on where the transaction take place (easy)?

I understand, even if I don't necessarily always agree with, market segmentation, differentiated pricing, accurate P&L 
for different business units, etc, that mean for example if you're a US citizen you need to pay Disney US the 
prevailing US price to watch Disney content, but if you're an EU citizen you need to pay Disney EMEA the prevailing EU 
price to watch Disney content.  Surely that transaction is the thing content creators and distributors care about?

If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip to the US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is 
screaming that I'm violating someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.  If a US citizen is paying for Hulu, 
from a US billing address, on a US credit card, but happens to be watching from their hotel in Italy, why does anyone 
care?

I can see why it's different and more complicated for content that's provided free but geo-constrained (e.g. BBC 
iPlayer), but IP geolocation for paid services seems a terrible waste of time and effort on both sides.

Or am I woefully naive, and it's actually trivial for a non-US resident to come up with a US credit card and billing 
address to pay for the service?

Regards,
Tim.



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