There Ain't No Hulu-ing Anywhere Else

I do not have television in my new apartment. My new roommate and I decided we didn't need it. I am a crazy Netflixer, so movies keep me sated most of the time. I am also able to visit abc.com and watch Grey's Anatomy and Lost (when it begins again in January), so my life is pretty much complete.

Occasionally, I want a sitcom fix. So I'll visit hulu.com and watch entire episodes of The Office or Family Guy. I haven't really investigated all hulu has to offer, actually, since these two usually do me just fine. I did recently watch a bunch of 30 Rock episodes on a disk my roommate has, and that's on Hulu, too, so perhaps I'll add it to my repertoire.

One night in Canada, I was feeling like a little something. I thought to myself, "Hmmm...maybe Christy and I should watch a movie on Netflix on Instant Download." I logged into Netflix and clicked "Watch Now" on one of the films in my queue. No can do. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something like, "Due to licensing, instant viewing is only available to users within the United States." Wow.

I tried to log onto abc.com to see what would happen. The full episode streaming link opened and I was met with a message similar to Netflix without the licensing message: ABC episode streaming is only available to users within the United States.

Wow. Off to hulu I went. (I couldn't believe it, apparently.) Same deal. WE KNOW YOU ARE IN CANADA. STOP TRYING TO WATCH OUR SHOWS ILLEGALLY. (Okay, not exactly, but you get the idea.)

Obviously, the computer knew where I am since I was accessing the internet via the wireless registered to a Canadian address. But it still felt a little big-brother-y.

I get the Netflix and Hulu deal, since they pay some kind of fee to be able to show those films and episodes to subscribers and viewers online. But ABC is just trying to make sure that other countries pay boatloads of money to show Grey's Anatomy on CanadaTV (which they do and they do -- we didn't miss the season premiere).

So there, other countries. You must wait to see American television when we are good and ready to release it to you. Don't think you can go logging onto the internet and see our stuff. Not even you, Canada.