Purchase easily and purchase legally are two different things. It still doesn't solve the problem though, does it? You're still breaking the law in some capacity and paying for the content legally when you're skirting the law doesn't make it any more justified, but neither does downloading it for free. Sure, you're paying for Netflix but you have to go through a VPN provider to do it properly and even then, VPN tunnelling can be very unreliable and slow. Australian Internet is very limited in terms of speed and bandwidth, the average Internet connection in a lot of the heavily populated parts of Australia is still slow and unreliable ADSL, not fibre like the rest of the developed world.
Grey/parallel imports for physical goods are not illegal in Australia. That is why I can buy a cheap DSLR camera that's imported from Hong Kong and sold by a Melbourne importer instead of paying twice the price for the "Australian" version at a local camera shop.
Netflix is actually very easy to set up, there are $2/month DNS services that make it very simple for even the technically inept to configure their Apple TV / iPad / computer to pick up Netflix in Australia. The combined cost of Netflix + DNS service is far cheaper than any local option, and the quantity of content is far greater.
The speed is not really relevant, I think. Whether it's legal or not — and whether it's likely to be enforced — the interesting question.
So simply analyse the situation a little bit. I am not a lawyer, and this is not a legal opinion, but I'm also not completely unaware of the law.
1) you are lying to netflix, which has you agree to a contract stating you will only watch from within the US.
You are violating a contract you've agreed to.
2) Netflix checks this, and you are explicitly using technical measures to successfully lie to netflix about your location, purposefully deceive a party you've contracted with in order to get out from under contract terms.
I believe this is fraud. If netflix can convince the police to take the case, you could go to jail for this. Advantage : only netflix can try to make them take the case, and they're unlikely to do so.
3) the content you're watching is licenced, with a licence stating it's watch within the US only.
This is copyright violation, or it's more popular term : piracy.
I would argue that watching netflix violating and circumventing their access controls is worse than torrenting.
> I would argue that watching netflix violating and circumventing their access controls is worse than torrenting.
I don't know if I would consider it worse. To me it feels like the morally better of the two — at least you are contributing some money towards the shows you like to watch, even if not through the proper channels.
I would also argue that Netflix could likely make it harder to circumvent their access controls, but it is probably not in their interest to do so. If it were up to Netflix, I suspect it would be available globally — Netflix only has to enforce the minimum required geoblocking to satisfy the rights holders. If some people get around this, all it means is more business and more mind share for Netflix. (And arguably more business for the rights holders.)
> Australian Internet is very limited in terms of speed and bandwidth, the average Internet connection in a lot of the heavily populated parts of Australia is still slow and unreliable ADSL, not fibre like the rest of the developed world.
