A clampdown by Netflix on Kiwi access to its US service appears to have begun.

Kiwi Netflix subscribers are pondering their options after the United States online television provider began blocking them from accessing its overseas programming.

New Zealand customers of Netflix have taken to social media to report that they have been blocked from viewing the US and other overseas versions of the world's most popular streaming television service.

The move suggests Netflix is continuing to try to make good on a promise it made earlier this month to restrict subscribers to watching only those programmes it has rights to show in each country.

It follows reports that Australian Netflix subscribers had also been blocked from accessing the US version of Netflix.

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Some Netflix subscribers in New Zealand boasted they had quickly circumvented the ban, but others said they might be deterred by the nuisance factor and the uncertainty.

Auckland woman Jo Hampton said she subscribed to Netflix' New Zealand service and had then used an Australian intermediary, Getflix, to watch programmes Netflix offered in Britain.

But she was considering dropping Netflix and trying out Spark's alternative Lightbox TV service after she had problems accessing Netflix' British programming late last week.

Netflix launched a slimmed-down version of its subscription television service in New Zealand and Australia in March, but many subscribers choose to log on to its US service because of the wider range of programmes it provides.

Most use a virtual network provider (VPN) service to disguise the location of their computers.

Netflix spokesman Jai Dattani would not confirm the company had started blocking New Zealand subscribers from accessing its overseas services but pointed to a blog the company issued two weeks ago that signalled it would take such action in "coming weeks".

"We haven't specified, country by country, when it is happening so there is nothing further I can add," he said.

The action is designed to placate film and television studios. Netflix is not supposed to let subscribers outside the US access its American service as it does not own the global rights to all the content it provides in each country.

There are doubts the blocks will prove fully effective with some Netflix subscribers reporting on technology site Geekzone that either they or their VPN provider had quickly been able to get around them.

Hampton said Getflix appeared to have restored access to Netflix' British service without her having to implement any workarounds.

"But it is psychological. I'm worried it is going to stop working so I have started looking at alternatives.

"I'm happy to make some small technical adjustments, but if it gets too hard I'm just not going to bother," she said, perhaps summing up the mood of many subscribers.

Others hoped in comments posted on stuff that the crackdown on VPN access to Netflix would prove a tokenistic effort by the TV company that would quickly blow over.