Mad Men is available for streaming on Netflix U.S. but not on Netflix U.K. You can watch Breaking Bad on Netflix in the U.K. but not in the U.S.
As a result, certain users try "fool" Netflix into thinking they're in a different locale, using VPNs or virtual private networks, to access content that isn't available in their country.
This VPN piracy is illegal, but instead of trying to block the practice Netflix wants to make it obsolete by launching a global version of its video streaming service. It's a nice idea and a very ambitious one which would require the negotiation of global licensing agreements with television and movie studios.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told Gizmodo Australia that creating a global version of Netflix would allow the company to work against full-blown illegal downloading rather than VPN piracy, which he admitted was "a small little asterisk compared to piracy."
"The VPN scenario is someone who wants to pay and can't quite pay," said Hastings. "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."
He differentiated VPN pirates from illegal downloaders, saying they are only accessing the content because it is not available in their particular country. "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," he added.
What Hastings failed to mention was just how he could negotiate the global rights agreements that this utopian Netflix would require to work. Currently, television companies in every country in the world bid to get the right to broadcast each individual program. To get the entire industry to change this practice looks to be a tall order.
Netflix may at least get some help from the European Union. On March 25, the EU released its plan for a single digital market within all member states. The plan would prohibit an EU country from having its own rules for telecommunications services, copyright, data protection, or the management of radio spectrum. If implemented, the new plan would allow Netflix to sell into 28 European countries with just one agreement.
However, such an agreement is still likely a long way off and, unfortunately for Hastings, there is no global legal authority equivalent to the EU that could implement such a plan worldwide. With that in mind, we may have to wait quite a while before we see a Global Netflix.
Photo: Gareth Cattermole | Getty Images
