HBO Now Doesn’t Know What It, Or Its Customers, Want

by
April 20, 2015

HBO, despite attempts to draw a larger consumer base via the still-new HBO Now streaming platform, seem set on alienating some of those very same new consumers. As stated in the terms of service, HBO NOW is available and designed strictly for United States residents, though numerous Canadians, European countries and Australia have circumvented the geo-locking HBO has placed on their product. At least until a few days ago, when The Sydney Morning Herald reported receiving emails from HBO warning of the potential for service to be cut off as soon as tomorrow. Rather than get payment in exchange for a service — a pretty basic concept — HBO seems to prefer receiving nothing.

From the above link, the following is an email sent to an Australian HBO Now user:

hboemail

Using a virtual private network (VPN) to trick the HBO NOW service into believing the the customer is located within the U.S. is apparently akin to pirating. If HBO is threatening to punish people who already pay for their service, it is curious to see them complain about online leaks when they take away a viable option for people to lawfully watch their shows.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Netflix, who also has strict terms of service regarding location, but is yet to actively target consumers. The streaming giant did limit the mobile — specifically Android — based geo-locking tricks, however Netflix spokesman Cliff Edwards said as long as the consumer can be verified in the correct location, they company will not block legitimate VPN usage. In an email Edwards wrote “There’s been no change to our VPN policy.” In a separate appearance, Edwards claimed “Detecting VPN usage is like playing a game of whack-a-mole.By their very nature, it’s difficult to tell how many people are bypassing geofilters.”

HBO NOW’s launch was disappointing even before this with their initial exclusive Apple partnership, but to see them go after paying customers, despite being out of the country, is shocking. If a foreign cord cutter isn’t allowed to pay for the standalone HBO programming, only one option remains and it involves the consumer getting what they want with HBO receiving zero payment.

(Image via HBO)





 

You can catch David spouting off about baseball, soccer, esports and other things by following him on twitter, @davidwiers.

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Stuck in a Slump
8 years ago

This kind of crap kills me! As a US citizen serving abroad with the government, I feel we should be able to access the comforts of home to make living overseas, often in hostile countries with minimal infrastructure. Right now, I have my computer setup on our VPN to protect our information and to stream Netflix, but have to switch off the VPN for MLB.tv. This isn’t too much of a hassle, but I’ve already been denied services like Hulu because we use the VPN (so, presumably, we’d be rejected stateside as well if we were to use the VPN there).

I really don’t understand why companies don’t want my money if I can provide a legit US address for my billing information.

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David Wiersmember
8 years ago
Reply to  Stuck in a Slump

The frustrations of customers for anything geolocked is being heard and either ignored, or in this case discouraged and denied.

If I’m HBO, why not take payment where I can?

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mtsw
8 years ago
Reply to  David Wiers

Foreign distribution of TV and movie content is more complicated than people think, which is why content producers often out-source it to local providers by selling the rights and let them take care of local issues. Yes, it would be more convenient to Australian customers if they could simply buy into the American distribution scheme, but then HBO is exposing itself to a situation where their American staff have to be cognizant of complying with a ton of Australian regulations from copyright to residuals to censorship to consumer protection to payment processing.

Yes, this is tremendously annoying for consumers, but it’s not clear what the alternative is, since solving this issue would take the cooperation of dozens of national governments to simplify and standardize their laws, many of which exist in the first place as protectionist barriers to protect domestic film/TV industries from American competition. You can take a laissez-faire attitude like Netflix does but you’re exposing yourself to potentially serious trouble with your distribution partners if you’re cannibalizing their business.

It’s fun to act like this is just some crazy idiocy by HBO rather than acknowledge the reality of the situation and the serious issues international content distribution poses

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Stuck in a Slump
8 years ago
Reply to  mtsw

But in this specific example (the post I started this thread with), I have an American address, one that is legit, and I am in service to the USG serving overseas. There should be a mechanism for overseas Americans in service to the USG, with addresses that are treated as domestic, to get these services. Something like giving HBO your device(s) MAC address or something along with your domestic address (in this case APO/FPO/DPO addresses, which most items that can be shipped domestically can pass through with little or no issues). For most devices, looking up this unique address is fairly easy and seems like a logical work around.

Got an official government issued address? Can you provide unique identification for your devices? Then you can have service! HBO and other providers could even limit it to three devices per household, and if you change your device or replace your NIC, then you can update the information in your profile. They could even include IP address tracking with a limit of two or three changes per month to help cover people who might need to setup a VPN or change the server that they connect through for whatever reasons.

This hardly seems like the ‘all or nothing’ approach that providers like Hulu and HBO are currently taking, is the only possible solution, and shouldn’t companies be interested in finding ways to reach new audiences?

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David Wiersmember
8 years ago
Reply to  David Wiers

You’re correct. I’m sure the legal side of things is absolutely more nuanced than anything I’m aware of, but then the question turns into “Why can Netflex essentially ignore those laws, whereas HBO can’t?”

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John Thacker
8 years ago
Reply to  David Wiers

At a guess, because HBO has pre-existing contracts with various global partners for rights in ways that Netflix does not. Just how MLB has problems televising games in regions where RSNs have paid for exclusive rights.

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Kevin
8 years ago
Reply to  David Wiers

Translation: Even though you’ve started to explain why a company might do that….I don’t like that answer…so I’m gonna move the goalposts. I can’t see beyond my experience, and what I want right now. And I have no interest in doing so.

I live in CO. I can’t drive to KS and buy pot legally.
Is it arbitrary that something is legal one place and not another? Yeah. But that’s the way the world’s laws work. I’m not sure why the legal arrangements that have been in place should just be dropped, because you want to watch Game of Thrones.

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John Thacker
8 years ago
Reply to  David Wiers

Netflix isn’t “ignoring these laws.” HBO has sold the rights to Game of Thrones (and other shows) to various local pay TV services and others in different countries. In doing so, they have signed exclusive contracts with those pay TV services. To simply allow people in those countries to then buy it directly from HBO would breach the contract with those services. It’s annoying, absolutely, but it’s easy to understand how it happens. It’s just like how mlb.tv can’t get around local blackouts when some RSN has paid for exclusive territorial rights for a number of years.

If Netflix doesn’t have those contracts for showing their produced shows on TV, no problem.

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Eric F
8 years ago

Just this weekend I had remembered hearing about HBO Now, and went to download it/use it, only to not be able to find it on my PS4 or Nexus 6. Then after going to the website I saw that it was only available on the Apple store, but that it could be watched through any browser so I thought “Fine, only watching on my computer is better than nothing.” Then you get to the fine print where it says sure you can watch on any browser, but you can only signup through Apple TV or the Apple store. Just seems completely ridiculous. Guess I’ll have to get my friend with Apple products to sign me up so I can use the browser-based service.

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David Wiersmember
8 years ago
Reply to  Eric F

Yeah, I was pretty crushed when I hear it was an Apply only launch. Even for three months, I felt and still feel like HBO gimped themselves.

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Adam L
8 years ago

We use strong dns to use netflix from overseas, and it is very annoying to have to jump through hoops to pay a company money to use its service.

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David Wiersmember
8 years ago
Reply to  Adam L

So you pay for a service, to access a service you pay for.

America!

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Kevin
8 years ago
Reply to  Adam L

This is well framed by you. But you are not paying for the service that you are receiving. You are paying for a service, and then altering that service.
It doesn’t seem that way to you, because you don’t want to think about it in those terms, because that doesn’t come across as down-home folksy common sense that Big Streaming just doesn’t get.
But if the service you pay specifically says you can’t use it Tibet…and you agree to that arrangement…You are not, in fact, paying to watch Netflix in Tibet. No matter how much you’re willing to twist things to fit your desired outcome.

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Paul G.
8 years ago

I suspect there are legal reasons for this. Very much like how I cannot download songs in iTunes if it is not available in the US store but is available in other countries’ stores. I’m very sure iTunes wants to sell me that song but are blocked by some regulation or another.

Still it does seem odd that HBO is being so aggressive about it. Either they have more paranoid lawyers or somebody or something spooked them.

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n0exit
8 years ago

There are no legal reasons for this. Only financial. Multi national companies have been operating for decades now in the online world. The only reason SVOD services geo block is to try and attempt to maximise the value of local exclusive rights for their content.

In Australia, game of thrones is sold to FoxTel (I think) a pay TV company. If Australians can pay HBO and don’t have to sign up to FoxTel the value of those exclusive rights falls. So far, SVOD services are of the belief that this fall is greater than the extra benefit gained of a customer. But as exclusive rights continue to lose value (because companies like Netflix don’t care and because geoblocking is ultimately pointless) we will reach an equilibrium where it is no longer efficient to geo block.

The basic driver of this situation is inherent to copyright. Copyright is basically a monopoly right and we all know that monopolies distort markets.

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Jeff in T.O.
8 years ago

KODI people…

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