Netflix licenses the right to stream films and pays based on that agreement rather than per-view, which is why movies are phased in and out. They have to continually renegotiate contracts.<p>As for geographic restrictions, movie distribution rights typically aren&#x27;t global. When a movie is produced, one distributor has North America, another distributor gets Europe, etc. Netflix, unfortunately, still has to navigate these out-dated distribution channels. It&#x27;s the same kind of reasoning that leads an American film to have a multi-month delay before being released in the UK despite the lack of additional overhead (subtitles, etc).