Watching Your Favourite TV Shows Legally Could Still Be A Decade Away

It has today been announced that US-founded streaming service Netflix has more than tripled the number of countries it can be accessed in, but Australian audiences shouldn't expect to be able to watch all the content available in America for at least five years. 

As Fairfax reports, Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings cited territorial licensing restrictions as the reason for users not being able to access the same content, though he predicted that the issue would be eliminated within the next ten years. 

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Hastings said, "As we build our library and renew existing deals we're getting to the state where over the next five or 10 years everything will be consistent around Netflix and everything will be available globally."

"We're moving as quickly as we can ... [but] we're still somewhat a prisoner of the current distribution architecture."

"We want the citizens of the world to have the same content."

Similarly, Netflix chief content office Ted Sarandos said, "It's going to be a patchwork for a while but all that regional availability is going to narrow over time."

"The technology is there; it's the business models that now stand in the way."

Before Wednesday the leading streaming service was available in 60 countries and 17 languages, however Hastings revealed that 130 new countries now have access to Netflix including Vietnam, India, Poland, Russa, Singapore and more.