Quote:
Originally Posted by pylon
I am not going to claim to be lily white on the VPN issue. I am on a VPN almost exclusively so I can access US Netflix. But I am still paying for Netflix. I get there are Canadian laws (######ed ones at that) that demand I watch a certain amount of Beachcombers and Mr D episodes a la "A clockwork Orange" style, and that I do not agree with. Is it a questionable grey area? sure. Is it illegal however? No. VPNs are not illegal, stealing movies and games is.
But at the end of the day, I am still paying for my services. My VPN membership is 80 bucks a year or something, and I still pay the monthly Netflix fee. Nobody is getting shafted.
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Absolutely somebody is getting shafted. Someone in Canada has paid for the rights to broadcast that content in Canada.The same applies with music services. There is a Canadian rights holder who negotiates and pays for those rights. The reason that the CRTC doesn't allow you to subscribe to US feeds is because the US rights holders have not paid for Canadian distribution. If they did then they would have to meet CanCon rules but that is not the sticking point.
I read up a bit on Rhapsody and why they couldn't come to Canada. It came down to the fees that the Canadian rights holders were asking. They wanted a fixed rate per song when Rhapsody operates on a flat rate per month for unlimited songs and has that agreement in place in the States. I don't agree with it at all and think that Canadian rights holders are shooting themselves in the foot by being difficult. The easiest way that I can see to force them to adapt is to circumvent them by using a VPN and going to the US for the feed. None of that means that the rights holder in Canada isn't being shafted, just that they are getting shafted because people think that what they are doing is wrong.