I normally use an Amazon Firestick to watch TV. I have NordVPN installed. It would appear that the VPN no longer allows access to BBC TV. Anybody else having the same problem?
Gus
I normally use an Amazon Firestick to watch TV. I have NordVPN installed. It would appear that the VPN no longer allows access to BBC TV. Anybody else having the same problem?
Gus
Mine works fine. Try refreshing Nord and letting it switch to different servers. They have many, and some of the older ones BBC has blocked now.
Yes, they are quite active and effective in spotting VP addresses.
Accessed it yesterday.
Try to connect to a different server, you need to disconnect Nord and then reconnect. It’s ITV that I have a problem with on the firestick, but it works ok on the computer.
I reboot my system and it works again
Yes, I also have this problem with both Surfshark and Nord VPN and it has got much worse recently. Just click back to your VPN and select another city. Both have a selection of cities - London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Sometimes you need to carry out this operation every time you change programmes on BBC, ITV and Ch4.
Doesn’t that kind of defeat the whole purpose of having a VPN though ?
No, because if you live in France and are using the Internet, you cannot access UK programmes without using a VPN. It is a glitch and a pain but will hopefully disappear as it has done in the past.
I’m sure every now and then the BBC and others have a burst of IP tracking. They can spot VPN servers because of multiple connections for single IPs. They block them and then the VPN suppliers change their servers IPs, it’s a never ending competition that has highs and lows.
I guess the lows are driven by the mount of resources the “victims” throw at monitoring the problem. If it doesn’t exist already, a nice little S/W and services opportunity would be to provide VPN “attack” prevention, but maybe it’s already built into the more sophisticated firewalls.
Despite it being in violation of the streaming services terms & agreements, i.e. you are repeatedly and knowingly committing that breach, and engaging in copyright infringement ?
I understand why people do it, and it also annoys me on a personal level that I can’t have access to a work I would like to watch because the licensing restrictions in the territory I happen to be in prevent it from being available. It seems to me though, that given the propensity for rights holders to want to maximise their revenue stream through licensing only in specific territories, or beceause legally they are bound to prevent that happening in a given territory, that things will probably only get worse. The general trend with regard to IP infringement in video and audio works is once again a tightening, rather than a loosening, of the rights holders grip on the control of its broadcasts.
Edit for addendum, including this because you don’t just have to take my word for it.
It is my understanding that most of those streaming providers that do watch VPN connections use deep packet inspection to track down and block ranges of suspicious IP addresses, and even identify the devices accessing the streaming service. Blocking whole swathes of domain name systems has also been attempted. Like you say, it is a never ending battle.
What an opportunity the BBC are missing for a massive revenue stream. Let people from outside UK subscribe to iPlayer.