Hulu Blocks International Access Via Witopia 256
An anonymous reader notes, and excerpts from, an article at PC Authority: "It's human nature that people always want what they can't have — which is why there's so much interest around the world in accessing the US-only Hulu site. Hulu offers a range of television shows for streaming, including Family Guy, The Daily Show and House along with a few full length movies. ... If you're outside the US, the easiest method for accessing Hulu that many people are discussing online, is using a US-based VPN, which tricks Hulu into thinking their computer is within the US. Initially Hulu started cracking down on free VPN services such as Hotspot Shield, but now it's turned its attention to Witopia — which costs $40 or $US60 per year but offers a faster, more secure and more reliable service than its free competitors. Initially Witopia's LA gateway remained unaffected, but now Hulu has blocked this as well."
Legal obligation to dub? (Score:4, Informative)
There are other VPNs that work... (Score:3, Informative)
Someone's gotta be new to these intertubes... (Score:5, Informative)
...and has yet to realize that there is no such thing on the Net as "can't haves" and "US-only sites". Technically, inaccessibility is damage and deservedly gets routed around. Laws trying to protect flawed business models that ask for the crippling of technological infrastructures to prevent larger audiences are a waste of taxpayers' money, much like a crackdown on automobiles would have been about a century ago to save forever the then status quo of the "flourishing" horse cart and pony express "industries".
Re:How it probably works... (Score:5, Informative)
It has absolutely nothing to do with ads, and everything to do with media contracts with overseas content providers.
If you're in the UK, and you want to watch Hulu, don't yell at Hulu, yell at Sky. They're the ones who have the exclusive broadcasting rights for certain shows in your country... they're the ones whose contracts prevent Hulu from streaming to your country.
Re:VPS hosting + VPN (Score:1, Informative)
And about stuff that matters.
Re:Dear content producers... (Score:4, Informative)
Most adverts are utterly irrelevant to most people anyway....
Re:"But if you don't want our money, fine" (Score:2, Informative)
has NOTHING to do with advertising..
Has evertything to do with deals such as...
"we sold the rights to broadcast the show to NBC in the US thus allowing Hulu to rebroadcast it on the interwebs, however we also sold the show in the UK to ITV, in the rest of the EU to SKY, and to about 15 other broadcasters worldwide... many at varying rates, and at variable seasons"
IE CSI is on season 47 in the US, but they sold the rights to seasons 1-5 for syndicated broadcast mon-friday in the EU to sky for X dollars (way cheaper than multinational "current season" rates, though in the UK ITV can show the current season ...
These crazy deals (a remnant of ancient past where we would be shipping cases of film over to the country in question) are the real stopping block for hulu and the like..
The ONLY reason HULU is so prominently in the middle of this mess is that its owed by NBC-universal and Fox who are seemingly the cotnent producers and owners but in MANY cases they too are simply consumers of the content (just because a show airs on fox/nbc/etc doesnt mean it was created there.. and they too may simply be broadcast in the united states rights holders)
This is very similar to the situation with BBConline and its iplayer.. they are legally (in the country which funds the production of the bulk of their content) not allowed as a quasi-government entity to fund broadband access to this content worldwide since they are funded by the license fee paid by UK residents.
Is hulu the badguy here? in many ways yes, in others only by association with its owners and their wider practices.. But the guy in "sales" at NBC-Universal who is selling the rights to broadcast the Law & Order franchise 50+ times worldwide.. and generating many many many millions in cash.. has ALOT more pull with his bosses, than the head of Hulu does.. since Hulu while generating tons of positive mindshare where it works, etc.. is not exactly generating hundreds of millions in cashflow from the ads it shows..
Hulu on Witopia is not completely blocked yet. (Score:1, Informative)
While Hulu did block all 4 of Witopia's US-based openvpn servers that you can find here http://wiki.witopia.net/wiki/Changing_Gateways , they also offer this one prod03.pvpn.lax.witopia.net which they specifically direct to IPs not blocked by Hulu. Witopia's online support directed me to this server and Hulu's been working fine ever since. I don't know how long it will last but Witopia must know they have subscribers specifically for Hulu access.
Re:SOCKS proxy to USA VPS doesn't work for me (Score:3, Informative)