Bell Media President Believes Using VPNs To Access US Netflix Makes You A Thief

Considering the fact that Mary Ann Turcke assumed her role as Bell Media’s president in April, it hasn’t taken long before something she said struck the wrong chord with Canadians.

A common belief among Canadian Netflix subscribers is that the US version of the service is vastly superior. This is something that has led even technologically inept people to figure out a way to tap into the US’ service, as it’s simply that much better. I can’t give exact examples, but even as someone who doesn’t watch a lot of TV or movies, even I am appalled at the differences in content between the two services.

Regardless of any of that, if you’re one of those who take advantage of VPNs to bypass the Canadian service to access the US one, you might be interested to know that Turcke believes that it’s “shameful”. So shameful, in fact, that it’s akin to “throwing garbage out your car window.” Even admitting that you use a VPN to access US Netflix is something that carries a social stigma with it. “You just don’t do it.”

Turcke’s most bold comment is that taking advantage of this practice is “stealing just like stealing anything else.” I am not so sure that’s the case, as if someone steals a car, the previous owner gets $0. If someone taps into US Netflix, they first have to subscribe to it, for at least $9/mo. I think it’s kind of hard to call someone a thief when they’re ultimately paying for what they’re accessing through the legal source.

It could be debated, though, that doing this would be like paying for a piece of software, and then cracking it to upgrade it to the next best version. You’re still paying money to the company, but just not what you should be. The difference here, of course, is that Canadian Netflix subscribers have absolutely no opportunity to gain access to the content they want without going the VPN route. I’d be willing to believe that most subscribers who take advantage of VPNs would be willing to pay an even higher subscription fee to gain access to this content they’d otherwise miss out on. It’s not about stealing; it’s about getting access to the content that their friends to the south can.

I believe that if Netflix cuts access to its service when VPNs are involved, its number of Canadian subscribers is going to decline dramatically. It’s just not going to be worth it for most people to subscribe when the content they want is not there. Instead, they’ll just subscribe on occasion, to catch up, and then unsubscribe again. We of course don’t know what goes on inside the offices of Netflix, but it seems likely that the company isn’t ignorant of this risk.