Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[William Guo]

Would love to have the hulu contact as well.

Thanks, Drew and Josh.

On Fri, Dec 13, 2019 at 4:05 AM Josh Luthman 
wrote:

> Can you share the contact information for the next person that runs into
> this problem?
>
> Josh Luthman
> Office: 937-552-2340
> Direct: 937-552-2343
> 1100 Wayne St
> Suite 1337
> Troy, OH 45373
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 2:01 PM Drew Weaver 
> wrote:
>
>> We’ve had success contacting Hulu and having them mark the tiny range of
>> applicable IPs as not being “cloud”.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* NANOG  *On
>> Behalf Of *Eric Fulton
>> *Sent:* Thursday, December 5, 2019 2:37 PM
>> *To:* Mark Tinka 
>> *Cc:* nanog@nanog.org
>> *Subject:* Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how
>> to reach them?
>>
>>
>>
>> This happened to us as well.  We've had probably over 100 requests over
>> the last few years, but thankfully most of our customers are fine with just
>> not purchasing Hulu.  We've only lost below 5 customers from this issue.
>>
>>
>> EF
>>
>>
>>
>> Treasure State Internet & Telegraph
>>
>> 406.204.4777
>>
>> http://tsi.io
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 3:32 AM Mark Tinka  wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 21/Nov/19 12:32, t...@pelican.org wrote:
>>
>> > If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip
>> to the US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm
>> violating someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.
>>
>> They would if it was possible to track you. Whenever I played DVD's or
>> BD's with my PS3/PS4, I sometimes hit issue because those boxes were
>> online, vs. my regular DVD player which wasn't.
>>
>> Offline DVD tech. is old school.
>>
>> Because tracking can be done with 2019 tech. due to VoD and its use of
>> the Internet, they will scream.
>>
>> Mark.
>>
>>

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Josh Luthman]

Can you share the contact information for the next person that runs into
this problem?

Josh Luthman
Office: 937-552-2340
Direct: 937-552-2343
1100 Wayne St
Suite 1337
Troy, OH 45373


On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 2:01 PM Drew Weaver  wrote:

> We’ve had success contacting Hulu and having them mark the tiny range of
> applicable IPs as not being “cloud”.
>
>
>
> *From:* NANOG  *On Behalf
> Of *Eric Fulton
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 5, 2019 2:37 PM
> *To:* Mark Tinka 
> *Cc:* nanog@nanog.org
> *Subject:* Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how
> to reach them?
>
>
>
> This happened to us as well.  We've had probably over 100 requests over
> the last few years, but thankfully most of our customers are fine with just
> not purchasing Hulu.  We've only lost below 5 customers from this issue.
>
>
> EF
>
>
>
> Treasure State Internet & Telegraph
>
> 406.204.4777
>
> http://tsi.io
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 3:32 AM Mark Tinka  wrote:
>
>
>
> On 21/Nov/19 12:32, t...@pelican.org wrote:
>
> > If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip
> to the US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm
> violating someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.
>
> They would if it was possible to track you. Whenever I played DVD's or
> BD's with my PS3/PS4, I sometimes hit issue because those boxes were
> online, vs. my regular DVD player which wasn't.
>
> Offline DVD tech. is old school.
>
> Because tracking can be done with 2019 tech. due to VoD and its use of
> the Internet, they will scream.
>
> Mark.
>
>

RE: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Drew Weaver]

We’ve had success contacting Hulu and having them mark the tiny range of 
applicable IPs as not being “cloud”.

From: NANOG  On Behalf Of Eric 
Fulton
Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2019 2:37 PM
To: Mark Tinka 
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach 
them?

This happened to us as well.  We've had probably over 100 requests over the 
last few years, but thankfully most of our customers are fine with just not 
purchasing Hulu.  We've only lost below 5 customers from this issue.

EF

Treasure State Internet & Telegraph
406.204.4777
http://tsi.io




On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 3:32 AM Mark Tinka 
mailto:mark.ti...@seacom.mu>> wrote:


On 21/Nov/19 12:32, t...@pelican.org<mailto:t...@pelican.org> wrote:

> If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip to the 
> US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm violating 
> someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.

They would if it was possible to track you. Whenever I played DVD's or
BD's with my PS3/PS4, I sometimes hit issue because those boxes were
online, vs. my regular DVD player which wasn't.

Offline DVD tech. is old school.

Because tracking can be done with 2019 tech. due to VoD and its use of
the Internet, they will scream.

Mark.

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Eric Fulton]

This happened to us as well.  We've had probably over 100 requests over the
last few years, but thankfully most of our customers are fine with just not
purchasing Hulu.  We've only lost below 5 customers from this issue.

EF

Treasure State Internet & Telegraph
406.204.4777
http://tsi.io




On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 3:32 AM Mark Tinka  wrote:

>
>
> On 21/Nov/19 12:32, t...@pelican.org wrote:
>
> > If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip
> to the US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm
> violating someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.
>
> They would if it was possible to track you. Whenever I played DVD's or
> BD's with my PS3/PS4, I sometimes hit issue because those boxes were
> online, vs. my regular DVD player which wasn't.
>
> Offline DVD tech. is old school.
>
> Because tracking can be done with 2019 tech. due to VoD and its use of
> the Internet, they will scream.
>
> Mark.
>

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Mark Tinka]

On 21/Nov/19 12:32, t...@pelican.org wrote:

> If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip to the 
> US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm violating 
> someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.

They would if it was possible to track you. Whenever I played DVD's or
BD's with my PS3/PS4, I sometimes hit issue because those boxes were
online, vs. my regular DVD player which wasn't.

Offline DVD tech. is old school.

Because tracking can be done with 2019 tech. due to VoD and its use of
the Internet, they will scream.

Mark.

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Mark Tinka]

On 19/Nov/19 20:17, Doug McIntyre wrote:

>
> If I knew why they considered my IP addresses "business" IP addresses,
> I could possibly change something?

Perhaps because it's static :-)?

Also, why are business people on Hulu during business hours :-).

Mark <= who asks while taking a work Zoom call in nothing + slippers
with a glass of wine in front of Netflix at home :-)...

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Mark Tinka]

On 19/Nov/19 20:38, Blake Hudson wrote:

>
>
> Thanks Doug. I'm interested in following your thread because we have
> some IP ranges we intentionally wanted to be classified as static or
> non-residential by other entities so that our customers on these
> ranges could operate their own email servers. This was done through a
> combination of reverse DNS including the word "static" (or similar)
> and the SpamHaus PBL listings (or similar). At the same time, we would
> not want Hulu to stop providing services to these customers due to
> this classification. Ultimately, I guess it's up to Hulu who they want
> to serve as a customer of theirs, but as a network operator providing
> access to to the internet (including access to services like Hulu) I'm
> sure we would be negatively impacted by such a decision on the part of
> Hulu causing to devalue the utility our services.

Dropped Hulu within 2 months of signing up, back in 2016.

If it ain't local, we ain't buyin', and Hulu seem to have little
interest in spreading.

Mark.

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG]

Bad wording on my part.  I wasn't trying to imply their statement was
true--just a bit of humor.

-A

On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 6:09 PM Owen DeLong  wrote:

>
>
> On Nov 22, 2019, at 17:47 , Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG 
> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 8:52 AM Blake Hudson  wrote:
>
>> This is absolutely an issue with Xbox Live/Sony PSN or RBLs used by mail
>> servers for reputation purposes. For better or worse these systems equate
>> one IPv4 address == one user (and possibly one IPv6 /64 == one user). My
>> opinion is that this may be a reasonable or "good enough" assumption
>>
>
> Talk to someone who has been sued for downloading or sharing movies.
> They'll swear on their own grave that one IP can never equal one user. ;)
>
> -A
>
>
> I’ll swear it’s a horrible assumption.
>
> Personally, I use many IP addresses each day.
> Some of them are also used by others.
> Some of them are not.
>
> Equating IP Address <-> Person relationships as being anything remotely
> resembling 1:1 is beyond absurd. To do so with an IPv6 /64 is even more so.
>
> Considering it to be reasonable or “good enough” is so far from valid I
> don’t even know where to begin.
>
> Owen
>
>

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Doug McIntyre]

On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 05:05:20AM +, Mike Lewinski wrote:
> Question: is anyone who is currently suffering this issue also doing 1:many 
> NAT? Or running a proxy server that might cause multiple clients to all 
> appear from the same IP address? I believe NAT might be the cause of one of 
> our customer's complaints wrt content provider blocking.


I'm the OP.

We do not do CGNAT or any sort of proxying. It is straight up one
public IP per access customer, with their NAT'd DSL router taking the
public IP. Nor do we offer any sort of VPN services. Just because of
our past history, all access customers are static IPs, so many of them
have had the same IP for over a decade (ie. highly unlikely that I have
a bad apple hopping a dynamic pool and ruining it for all). 

Furthermore, we have 3 disjoint ARIN PIR blocks. All three of them are
blocked across the whole range. So, somebody at Hulu took a look
at our AS, and blocked all we announce.

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Owen DeLong]

> On Nov 22, 2019, at 17:47 , Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG  
> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 8:52 AM Blake Hudson  > wrote:
> This is absolutely an issue with Xbox Live/Sony PSN or RBLs used by mail 
> servers for reputation purposes. For better or worse these systems equate one 
> IPv4 address == one user (and possibly one IPv6 /64 == one user). My opinion 
> is that this may be a reasonable or "good enough" assumption
> 
> Talk to someone who has been sued for downloading or sharing movies.  They'll 
> swear on their own grave that one IP can never equal one user. ;)
> 
> -A

I’ll swear it’s a horrible assumption.

Personally, I use many IP addresses each day.
Some of them are also used by others.
Some of them are not.

Equating IP Address <-> Person relationships as being anything remotely 
resembling 1:1 is beyond absurd. To do so with an IPv6 /64 is even more so.

Considering it to be reasonable or “good enough” is so far from valid I don’t 
even know where to begin.

Owen

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG]

On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 8:52 AM Blake Hudson  wrote:

> This is absolutely an issue with Xbox Live/Sony PSN or RBLs used by mail
> servers for reputation purposes. For better or worse these systems equate
> one IPv4 address == one user (and possibly one IPv6 /64 == one user). My
> opinion is that this may be a reasonable or "good enough" assumption
>

Talk to someone who has been sued for downloading or sharing movies.
They'll swear on their own grave that one IP can never equal one user. ;)

-A

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Mike Lewinski]

Question: is anyone who is currently suffering this issue also doing 1:many 
NAT? Or running a proxy server that might cause multiple clients to all appear 
from the same IP address? I believe NAT might be the cause of one of our 
customer's complaints wrt content provider blocking.

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Crist Clark]

Probably because a market would quickly pop up to sell or rent accounts
created in one region to others.

On Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 2:32 AM t...@pelican.org  wrote:

> On Wednesday, 20 November, 2019 21:25, "William Herrin" 
> said:
>
> > This is why you don't go after Hulu. You go after the content owners who
> > conspired to compel Hulu to limit distribution in a way that tortiously
> > interferes with your contract with your eyeball customers.
>
> Am I the only one who's baffled in the context of a paid service why so
> much focus is put on where the consumption takes place (hard), and so
> little on where the transaction take place (easy)?
>
> I understand, even if I don't necessarily always agree with, market
> segmentation, differentiated pricing, accurate P for different business
> units, etc, that mean for example if you're a US citizen you need to pay
> Disney US the prevailing US price to watch Disney content, but if you're an
> EU citizen you need to pay Disney EMEA the prevailing EU price to watch
> Disney content.  Surely that transaction is the thing content creators and
> distributors care about?
>
> If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip to
> the US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm violating
> someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.  If a US citizen is
> paying for Hulu, from a US billing address, on a US credit card, but
> happens to be watching from their hotel in Italy, why does anyone care?
>
> I can see why it's different and more complicated for content that's
> provided free but geo-constrained (e.g. BBC iPlayer), but IP geolocation
> for paid services seems a terrible waste of time and effort on both sides.
>
> Or am I woefully naive, and it's actually trivial for a non-US resident to
> come up with a US credit card and billing address to pay for the service?
>
> Regards,
> Tim.
>
>
>
>
On Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 2:32 AM t...@pelican.org  wrote:

> On Wednesday, 20 November, 2019 21:25, "William Herrin" 
> said:
>
> > This is why you don't go after Hulu. You go after the content owners who
> > conspired to compel Hulu to limit distribution in a way that tortiously
> > interferes with your contract with your eyeball customers.
>
> Am I the only one who's baffled in the context of a paid service why so
> much focus is put on where the consumption takes place (hard), and so
> little on where the transaction take place (easy)?
>
> I understand, even if I don't necessarily always agree with, market
> segmentation, differentiated pricing, accurate P for different business
> units, etc, that mean for example if you're a US citizen you need to pay
> Disney US the prevailing US price to watch Disney content, but if you're an
> EU citizen you need to pay Disney EMEA the prevailing EU price to watch
> Disney content.  Surely that transaction is the thing content creators and
> distributors care about?
>
> If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip to
> the US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm violating
> someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.  If a US citizen is
> paying for Hulu, from a US billing address, on a US credit card, but
> happens to be watching from their hotel in Italy, why does anyone care?
>
> I can see why it's different and more complicated for content that's
> provided free but geo-constrained (e.g. BBC iPlayer), but IP geolocation
> for paid services seems a terrible waste of time and effort on both sides.
>
> Or am I woefully naive, and it's actually trivial for a non-US resident to
> come up with a US credit card and billing address to pay for the service?
>
> Regards,
> Tim.
>
>
>
>

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[William Herrin]

On Thu, Nov 21, 2019 at 10:22 AM Blake Hudson  wrote:
> t...@pelican.org wrote on 11/21/2019 4:32 AM:
> > Or am I woefully naive, and it's actually trivial for a non-US resident
to come up with a US credit card and billing address to pay for the service?

1. Buy a prepaid debit card.
2. Rent a mailbox at Mailboxes Etc. or a similar company.
3. Log in to the prepaid card's web site and enter the address of your
rented mailbox as the billing address.


> Tim, like you, I've been baffled by this choice as well. Why streaming
> video providers continue to choose a costly and convoluted path when a
> less convoluted and cheaper path exists to reach (seemingly) the same
> destination I will never know.

Again, streaming video providers did not make this choice. Content owners
did, and made its enforcement a contractual requirement for leasing that
content to the streaming video providers.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William Herrin
b...@herrin.us
https://bill.herrin.us/

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Blake Hudson]

t...@pelican.org wrote on 11/21/2019 4:32 AM:

On Wednesday, 20 November, 2019 21:25, "William Herrin"  said:


This is why you don't go after Hulu. You go after the content owners who
conspired to compel Hulu to limit distribution in a way that tortiously
interferes with your contract with your eyeball customers.

Am I the only one who's baffled in the context of a paid service why so much 
focus is put on where the consumption takes place (hard), and so little on 
where the transaction take place (easy)?

I understand, even if I don't necessarily always agree with, market segmentation, 
differentiated pricing, accurate P for different business units, etc, that 
mean for example if you're a US citizen you need to pay Disney US the prevailing US 
price to watch Disney content, but if you're an EU citizen you need to pay Disney 
EMEA the prevailing EU price to watch Disney content.  Surely that transaction is 
the thing content creators and distributors care about?

If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip to the 
US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm violating 
someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.  If a US citizen is 
paying for Hulu, from a US billing address, on a US credit card, but happens to 
be watching from their hotel in Italy, why does anyone care?

I can see why it's different and more complicated for content that's provided 
free but geo-constrained (e.g. BBC iPlayer), but IP geolocation for paid 
services seems a terrible waste of time and effort on both sides.

Or am I woefully naive, and it's actually trivial for a non-US resident to come 
up with a US credit card and billing address to pay for the service?

Regards,
Tim.



Tim, like you, I've been baffled by this choice as well. Why streaming 
video providers continue to choose a costly and convoluted path when a 
less convoluted and cheaper path exists to reach (seemingly) the same 
destination I will never know. Perhaps one company did it that way so 
others just copied the mistake? Perhaps providers feel it's necessary 
because not all of them require transactions with a billing/mailing 
address all the time (think free/trial services or gift cards)? One can 
only attempt to conceive of the inconceivable...

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Tom Beecher]

>
> If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip to
> the US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm violating
> someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.  If a US citizen is
> paying for Hulu, from a US billing address, on a US credit card, but
> happens to be watching from their hotel in Italy, why does anyone care?
>

Hulu probably doesn't. But many content owners are still riding that Region
Locking Hype Train in the face of all the available evidence that it
doesn't really do anything but create a nuisance.  And they do pretty much
have you over the barrel, since you likely don't have another option.


On Thu, Nov 21, 2019 at 5:34 AM t...@pelican.org  wrote:

> On Wednesday, 20 November, 2019 21:25, "William Herrin" 
> said:
>
> > This is why you don't go after Hulu. You go after the content owners who
> > conspired to compel Hulu to limit distribution in a way that tortiously
> > interferes with your contract with your eyeball customers.
>
> Am I the only one who's baffled in the context of a paid service why so
> much focus is put on where the consumption takes place (hard), and so
> little on where the transaction take place (easy)?
>
> I understand, even if I don't necessarily always agree with, market
> segmentation, differentiated pricing, accurate P for different business
> units, etc, that mean for example if you're a US citizen you need to pay
> Disney US the prevailing US price to watch Disney content, but if you're an
> EU citizen you need to pay Disney EMEA the prevailing EU price to watch
> Disney content.  Surely that transaction is the thing content creators and
> distributors care about?
>
> If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip to
> the US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm violating
> someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.  If a US citizen is
> paying for Hulu, from a US billing address, on a US credit card, but
> happens to be watching from their hotel in Italy, why does anyone care?
>
> I can see why it's different and more complicated for content that's
> provided free but geo-constrained (e.g. BBC iPlayer), but IP geolocation
> for paid services seems a terrible waste of time and effort on both sides.
>
> Or am I woefully naive, and it's actually trivial for a non-US resident to
> come up with a US credit card and billing address to pay for the service?
>
> Regards,
> Tim.
>
>
>

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[t...@pelican.org]

On Thursday, 21 November, 2019 12:00, "Rob Seastrom"  said:

>> On Nov 21, 2019, at 05:33, "t...@pelican.org"  wrote:
>>
>> Or am I woefully naive, and it's actually trivial for a non-US resident to 
>> come
>> up with a US credit card and billing address to pay for the service?
> 
> It’s a thing.   Need a US address but fairly straightforward.  Ask your
> favorite border hopping Canadian.
> 

Fair enough - thanks for the info.  These days, you have to show up in person 
at a branch with a passport to open almost any kind of bank account here, 
following a money-laundering crackdown, so I was assuming it ought to be a 
sufficiently-strong check to satisfy rights-holders.

Regards,
Tim.

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[t...@pelican.org]

On Wednesday, 20 November, 2019 21:25, "William Herrin"  said:

> This is why you don't go after Hulu. You go after the content owners who
> conspired to compel Hulu to limit distribution in a way that tortiously
> interferes with your contract with your eyeball customers.

Am I the only one who's baffled in the context of a paid service why so much 
focus is put on where the consumption takes place (hard), and so little on 
where the transaction take place (easy)?

I understand, even if I don't necessarily always agree with, market 
segmentation, differentiated pricing, accurate P for different business 
units, etc, that mean for example if you're a US citizen you need to pay Disney 
US the prevailing US price to watch Disney content, but if you're an EU citizen 
you need to pay Disney EMEA the prevailing EU price to watch Disney content.  
Surely that transaction is the thing content creators and distributors care 
about?

If I, as a UK citizen, buy region 2 DVDs at home, take them on my trip to the 
US and watch them on my laptop, no-one is screaming that I'm violating 
someone's geographic distribution rights by doing so.  If a US citizen is 
paying for Hulu, from a US billing address, on a US credit card, but happens to 
be watching from their hotel in Italy, why does anyone care?

I can see why it's different and more complicated for content that's provided 
free but geo-constrained (e.g. BBC iPlayer), but IP geolocation for paid 
services seems a terrible waste of time and effort on both sides.

Or am I woefully naive, and it's actually trivial for a non-US resident to come 
up with a US credit card and billing address to pay for the service?

Regards,
Tim.

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Owen DeLong]

> On Nov 20, 2019, at 12:44 , Brandon Martin  wrote:
> 
> On 11/20/19 3:31 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>> As an ISP, there might be something there, but, you’d have to prove that you 
>> had a significant number of customers that left for that specific reason and 
>> you’d have to show the actual damages that resulted. Easy to estimate, very 
>> hard to prove.
> 
> Not only hard to prove, but the armchair lawyer in my has an inkling that 
> you'd have to show that they did it intentionally or went beyond being dumb 
> or knowledgeable about it and were somehow negligent.  The former seems even 
> more difficult than proving actual damages, and the latter seems like it may 
> not even apply or be possible.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but being dumb about it _IS_ negligent, isn’t it?

> What irks me most about these situations as an operator, and indeed something 
> that may push back on my previous statement of intent or negligence not being 
> possible/applicable, is that the services often make their geofencing/IP 
> classification system failures out as being the fault of the user's 
> telecommunications service provider when, in fact, the user's service 
> provider often has absolutely no direct control over what happens and, even 
> where they do have some form of direct control such as through a documented 
> operations-appeals channel, are still at the mercy of the service doing the 
> fencing/classification to correct the error.  At minimum, this could damage 
> customer good will toward their service provider.

Yep… Hence what I proposed as regulation to help curtail this BS.

> (And kudos where it's due to the providers who do NOT make such issues appear 
> to be the fault of the user's telecommunications service provider and instead 
> provide a real, useful means for the user to directly contact the content 
> provider to resolve the issue)

Who are they? I want to shift my services to them if I can. (So far, I haven’t 
found any)

Owen

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Ethan O'Toole]

This is why you don't go after Hulu. You go after the content owners who
conspired to compel Hulu to limit distribution in a way that tortiously
interferes with your contract with your eyeball customers. Then, before


Which in many cases is groups like the Screen Actors Guild and the music 
industry. As I understand it much of the music in TV shows require 
licensing and sometimes different license holders exist for a song 
depending on country.


While the television industry self-inflicts pain to it's userbase 
it's easier for the users to just pirate the content.



- Ethan

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[William Herrin]

On Wed, Nov 20, 2019 at 12:32 PM Owen DeLong  wrote:
> The problem here is that identifying class members is very hard (most
class members wouldn’t realize why they were not getting Hulu, and Hulu
probably either quickly corrects the problem on their end or blames the
ISP), meaning they wouldn’t realize their ability to join the class.
>
> As an individual customer, Hulu will refund your money and tell you to
piss off. That’s about all you’re likely to recover in the court case, too.
>
> As an ISP, there might be something there, but, you’d have to prove that
you had a significant number of customers that left for that specific
reason and you’d have to show the actual damages that resulted. Easy to
estimate, very hard to prove.

This is why you don't go after Hulu. You go after the content owners who
conspired to compel Hulu to limit distribution in a way that tortiously
interferes with your contract with your eyeball customers. Then, before
you've spent much money (filing lawsuits and notifying the defendants only
costs in the hundreds of dollars), you suggest to their respective counsels
that they didn't actually intend to exclude your customers and that if Hulu
weren't so reckless in their implementation you'd be inclined to drop the
matter.


-- 
William Herrin
b...@herrin.us
https://bill.herrin.us/

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Brandon Martin]

On 11/20/19 3:31 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
As an ISP, there might be something there, but, you’d have to prove that 
you had a significant number of customers that left for that specific 
reason and you’d have to show the actual damages that resulted. Easy to 
estimate, very hard to prove.


Not only hard to prove, but the armchair lawyer in my has an inkling 
that you'd have to show that they did it intentionally or went beyond 
being dumb or knowledgeable about it and were somehow negligent.  The 
former seems even more difficult than proving actual damages, and the 
latter seems like it may not even apply or be possible.


What irks me most about these situations as an operator, and indeed 
something that may push back on my previous statement of intent or 
negligence not being possible/applicable, is that the services often 
make their geofencing/IP classification system failures out as being the 
fault of the user's telecommunications service provider when, in fact, 
the user's service provider often has absolutely no direct control over 
what happens and, even where they do have some form of direct control 
such as through a documented operations-appeals channel, are still at 
the mercy of the service doing the fencing/classification to correct the 
error.  At minimum, this could damage customer good will toward their 
service provider.


(And kudos where it's due to the providers who do NOT make such issues 
appear to be the fault of the user's telecommunications service provider 
and instead provide a real, useful means for the user to directly 
contact the content provider to resolve the issue)

--
Brandon Martin

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Owen DeLong]

>> 
> I suppose a Hulu subscriber could dispute the charge or file a suit (class 
> action?) for damages: "Hulu took my money, but didn't provide the services 
> they advertised." As an ISP, some of us might even be in a position where we 
> encounter losses due to Hulu's (mis)classification resulting in customers 
> moving to the competition; I would think that would be sufficient grounds for 
> a suit.

The problem here is that identifying class members is very hard (most class 
members wouldn’t realize why they were not getting Hulu, and Hulu probably 
either quickly corrects the problem on their end or blames the ISP), meaning 
they wouldn’t realize their ability to join the class.

As an individual customer, Hulu will refund your money and tell you to piss 
off. That’s about all you’re likely to recover in the court case, too.

As an ISP, there might be something there, but, you’d have to prove that you 
had a significant number of customers that left for that specific reason and 
you’d have to show the actual damages that resulted. Easy to estimate, very 
hard to prove.

So in this particular case, I think Hulu is tragically safe from being held 
accountable.

I think the best solution would be something like this…

If congress were to revise the DMCA to provide a provision similar to the 
following:

1.  Digital Rights Management
Content producers and Content owners have the right to enforce their copyright 
through automated means
known as “Digital Rights Management” (DRM).

DRM mechanisms may include, but are not limited to any of the following:
+   IP Address based geographical location inference and content limitations
+   Efforts to avoid delivery of services to users of Virtual Private 
Networks
+   Software locks or limitations preventing playback based on machine 
configuration, software status,
or other variables.
+   Self-destructive content

2.  Duties of Content Producers and Content Owners
Content producers and Content owners must, however, ensure that any form of DRM 
employed in this
process does not in any way curtail the legitimate rights of end users who have 
lawfully purchased,
licensed, or otherwise through fair use or other mechanism obtained legitimate 
rights to the content.

3.  Rights of Consumers
The fair trade commission shall maintain a mechanism for consumers to report 
and document instances
where their content rights have been infringed, abridged, or otherwise hindered 
by DRM. Through this
process, the FTC shall investigate all credible complaints and make a 
determination of fact whether
the consumer’s rights were violated.

In such an instance where the FTC determines consumers rights were violated, 
the Content Owner,
Content Producer, and any Content Providers involved shall be jointly and 
severally liable for the following
damages:
+   Restitution to each affected consumer of the full cost (if any) 
born by the consumer in obtaining the
infringed rights.
+   A DRM free copy of the content in the same format(s) and usable 
with the same playback
mechanism(s) provided to each affected consumer.
+   A fine payable to the united States not to exceed $10,000 per 
incident per affected consumer.
+   Reimbursement to the FTC for all costs of the investigation and 
any process(es) related to
enforcement of any judgment resulting from the investigation.

In the event that a Content Owner, Producer, or Provider wishes to appeal an 
FTC ruling, the appeal
shall be heard in the circuit court of appeals covering the largest fraction of 
the affected consumers known
to be affected at the time of the ruling. While awaiting said hearing, the 
restitution to affected consumers
and DRM free copy shall be provided not less than 60 days after the initial 
ruling.

Owen

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Blake Hudson]

Owen DeLong wrote on 11/20/2019 11:51 AM:



On Nov 20, 2019, at 07:38 , Tom Beecher > wrote:


Never did figure out if it was stupidity
or malice driving that.


Personally I think it's neither; it's just $.

They could invest in a robust system to accurately identify what they 
chose not to allow to access the service. Or, they can choose to run 
with a 'close enough' system with some legitimate users caught in the 
middle.


They've most likely done the math and decided that the revenue lost 
from people getting caught up in inaccurate blocking is small enough 
that the investment in a more accurate method isn't worth it. This is 
unfortunately the more common decision in this age of worship at the 
Altar of Maximum Shareholder Value.


I think you are exactly right here. It’s yet another example of how 
the incentives around DRM are all messed up and are creating economic 
bias in favor of screwing consumers as much as possible without 
loosing too much revenue.


What is needed is either a more conscientious consumer base that will 
see this and react by voting with their wallets, or, regulation which 
provides more costly penalties for screwing over legitimate consumers.


Owen

I suppose a Hulu subscriber could dispute the charge or file a suit 
(class action?) for damages: "Hulu took my money, but didn't provide the 
services they advertised." As an ISP, some of us might even be in a 
position where we encounter losses due to Hulu's (mis)classification 
resulting in customers moving to the competition; I would think that 
would be sufficient grounds for a suit.

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Owen DeLong]

> On Nov 20, 2019, at 07:38 , Tom Beecher  wrote:
> 
> Never did figure out if it was stupidity
> or malice driving that.
> 
> Personally I think it's neither; it's just $.  
> 
> They could invest in a robust system to accurately identify what they chose 
> not to allow to access the service. Or, they can choose to run with a 'close 
> enough' system with some legitimate users caught in the middle. 
> 
> They've most likely done the math and decided that the revenue lost from 
> people getting caught up in inaccurate blocking is small enough that the 
> investment in a more accurate method isn't worth it. This is unfortunately 
> the more common decision in this age of worship at the Altar of Maximum 
> Shareholder Value. 

I think you are exactly right here. It’s yet another example of how the 
incentives around DRM are all messed up and are creating economic bias in favor 
of screwing consumers as much as possible without loosing too much revenue.

What is needed is either a more conscientious consumer base that will see this 
and react by voting with their wallets, or, regulation which provides more 
costly penalties for screwing over legitimate consumers.

Owen

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Tom Beecher]

>
> Never did figure out if it was stupidity
> or malice driving that.
>

Personally I think it's neither; it's just $.

They could invest in a robust system to accurately identify what they chose
not to allow to access the service. Or, they can choose to run with a
'close enough' system with some legitimate users caught in the middle.

They've most likely done the math and decided that the revenue lost from
people getting caught up in inaccurate blocking is small enough that the
investment in a more accurate method isn't worth it. This is unfortunately
the more common decision in this age of worship at the Altar of Maximum
Shareholder Value.

On Wed, Nov 20, 2019 at 12:20 AM Valdis Klētnieks 
wrote:

> On Tue, 19 Nov 2019 13:39:56 -0500, Tom Beecher said:
>
> > They are essentially equating 'business' with 'VPN provider'.
>
> Not at all surprised.
>
> Many moons ago, I had a Tor *relay* running on one machine in my home
> network,
> and Hulu decided that my connections from a *different* home machine were
> "VPN".  Now, if I were running a Tor *exit* node, I'd be totally OK with
> them
> rejecting my non-Tor connections because they were NATed to the same
> outside IP
> address - but Hulu should never have seen any packets from the relay and
> if I
> *was* using a VPN I'd have a *different* IP address.
>
> Near as I could determine, they were screen scraping the list of Tor relays
> and conflating them with exit nodes. Never did figure out if it was
> stupidity
> or malice driving that.
>

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Valdis Klētnieks]

On Tue, 19 Nov 2019 13:39:56 -0500, Tom Beecher said:

> They are essentially equating 'business' with 'VPN provider'.

Not at all surprised.

Many moons ago, I had a Tor *relay* running on one machine in my home network,
and Hulu decided that my connections from a *different* home machine were
"VPN".  Now, if I were running a Tor *exit* node, I'd be totally OK with them
rejecting my non-Tor connections because they were NATed to the same outside IP
address - but Hulu should never have seen any packets from the relay and if I
*was* using a VPN I'd have a *different* IP address.

Near as I could determine, they were screen scraping the list of Tor relays
and conflating them with exit nodes. Never did figure out if it was stupidity
or malice driving that.


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Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Tom Beecher]

They are essentially equating 'business' with 'VPN provider'.

On Tue, Nov 19, 2019 at 1:25 PM Matt Hoppes <
mattli...@rivervalleyinternet.net> wrote:

> Why are "businesses" not allowed to watch HULU?
>
> On 11/19/19 1:17 PM, Doug McIntyre wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 10:55:01AM -0600, Blake Hudson wrote:
> >> Doug, out of curiosity, what does Hulu do once they have classified your
> >> IP ranges as "business class"? Charge customers a different rate? Offer
> >> different content? Refuse service?
> >
> > They won't let any of my customers connect, blocking them with a
> > specific error number to reference by their support. When they do, Hulu
> > is either telling them that they are using a VPN (when we don't offer
> > any services like that), and then to whitelist them, they have to have
> > a "residential" IP address and not the "business" IP address we are
> > giving them, and won't go any further. Or they just say they can't
> > connect from the "business" IP addresses.
> >
> > If I knew why they considered my IP addresses "business" IP addresses,
> > I could possibly change something? But this seems to be an arbitrary
> > decision they changed about a week and a half ago for all my netblocks.
> >
> >
>

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Mike Hammett]

Hulu is the worst-run streaming service, mostly because they don't cooperate 
with ISPs in the least. 




- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 

- Original Message -

From: "Doug McIntyre"  
To: nanog@nanog.org 
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2019 10:41:06 AM 
Subject: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach 
them? 

I've been offering residential and business ISP services for a long time. 

Hulu recently blocked my customers from accessing their service, because my 
ARIN IP address blocks are "business class" instead of residential. 

I've tried to find a contact for them as I am not a customer, the 
supportrequ...@hulu.com address mentioned in NANOG previously is just 
an autoresponder that says open a ticket online (once you are logged into your 
account). 

Does anybody have a contact for them that I can discuss what they are 
looking at to determine if my IP addresses are "residential" 
vs. "business" class? 

Thanks. 

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Matt Hoppes]

Why are "businesses" not allowed to watch HULU?

On 11/19/19 1:17 PM, Doug McIntyre wrote:

On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 10:55:01AM -0600, Blake Hudson wrote:

Doug, out of curiosity, what does Hulu do once they have classified your
IP ranges as "business class"? Charge customers a different rate? Offer
different content? Refuse service?


They won't let any of my customers connect, blocking them with a
specific error number to reference by their support. When they do, Hulu
is either telling them that they are using a VPN (when we don't offer
any services like that), and then to whitelist them, they have to have
a "residential" IP address and not the "business" IP address we are
giving them, and won't go any further. Or they just say they can't
connect from the "business" IP addresses.

If I knew why they considered my IP addresses "business" IP addresses,
I could possibly change something? But this seems to be an arbitrary
decision they changed about a week and a half ago for all my netblocks.

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Doug McIntyre]

On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 10:55:01AM -0600, Blake Hudson wrote:
> Doug, out of curiosity, what does Hulu do once they have classified your 
> IP ranges as "business class"? Charge customers a different rate? Offer 
> different content? Refuse service?

They won't let any of my customers connect, blocking them with a
specific error number to reference by their support. When they do, Hulu
is either telling them that they are using a VPN (when we don't offer
any services like that), and then to whitelist them, they have to have
a "residential" IP address and not the "business" IP address we are
giving them, and won't go any further. Or they just say they can't
connect from the "business" IP addresses. 

If I knew why they considered my IP addresses "business" IP addresses,
I could possibly change something? But this seems to be an arbitrary
decision they changed about a week and a half ago for all my netblocks.

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Blake Hudson]

Doug, out of curiosity, what does Hulu do once they have classified your 
IP ranges as "business class"? Charge customers a different rate? Offer 
different content? Refuse service?



Doug McIntyre wrote on 11/18/2019 10:41 AM:

I've been offering residential and business ISP services for a long time.

Hulu recently blocked my customers from accessing their service, because my
ARIN IP address blocks are "business class" instead of residential.

I've tried to find a contact for them as I am not a customer, the
supportrequ...@hulu.com address mentioned in NANOG previously is just
an autoresponder that says open a ticket online (once you are logged into your 
account).

Does anybody have a contact for them that I can discuss what they are
looking at to determine if my IP addresses are "residential"
vs. "business" class?

Thanks.

Re: Hulu thinks all my IP addresses are "business class", how to reach them?

[Brian Ellwood]

Have you tried reaching out to ipad...@hulu.com?

—
Brian Ellwood
Senior Systems Engineer
INOC Data Centers
O: 518-689-4350

> On Nov 18, 2019, at 11:41, Doug McIntyre  wrote:
> 
> I've been offering residential and business ISP services for a long time.
> 
> Hulu recently blocked my customers from accessing their service, because my
> ARIN IP address blocks are "business class" instead of residential.
> 
> I've tried to find a contact for them as I am not a customer, the
> supportrequ...@hulu.com address mentioned in NANOG previously is just
> an autoresponder that says open a ticket online (once you are logged into 
> your account). 
> 
> Does anybody have a contact for them that I can discuss what they are
> looking at to determine if my IP addresses are "residential"
> vs. "business" class?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 



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