Web Development, Internets & Life.

How To: Watch Comedy Central Videos From Canada

Posted: August 15th, 2009 | Author: RyanN | Filed under: HowTo, Tips, Websites | View Comments

The relationship between Comedy Central and Canada’s Comedy Network is the worst example of what can happen when rights owners assert copyright on the internet, based on national borders. If you are not aware – like Hulu, TV.com and others – Comedy Central videos will not play in Canada, but it’s worse. ComedyCentral.comthe entire domain – is unavailable to Canadian IPs! When you try visit it, you are redirected to comedynetwork.ca.

I found a workaround to this buried in a comment thread on reddit. Firefox users only:

For Canadian viewers, if you are using firefox, install the following addon:
http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/967
then:

1) In Firefox, Go to tools->modify headers
2) From the drop down box on the left select add
3) Then enter: “X-Forwarded-For” in the first input box without the quotation marks
4) Enter: “12.13.14.15″ in the second input box without the quotation marks
5) Leave the last input box empty, and save the filter, and enable it

http://imgur.com/Feb4.png

6) Click the ‘Configuration’ tab on the right then proceed to check the ‘always on’ button.

Close the Modify Headers box and it should work.

[orginal post]

Works like a charm!


  • Not only is Comedy Central not available in Canada, it appears that Comedy Network is not available in the US! I just tried the link from here in Massachusetts and got told "You are not authorized to view this page" and "IP address of the client has been rejected."

    That is really creepy.
  • ohryan
    Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. The stupid rights agreements go both ways.
  • Silver
    Works great for comedy central. Though not so much for Hulu. Thanks for the solution anyway!
  • Jessica
    YOU TOTALLY SAVE MY BORING DAYS IN CANADA... thanks that was very helpful ! God bless you !

    Love you !..hehehe =op
  • oh man! I read this comment on Reddit a while back at an Internet cafe, and haven't been able to find it since!
  • roger
    works for me in uk too! thank you :)
  • Ryan
    worked great - thanks!
  • Sebastian
    This is so easy and it works! Thank you SO much. Works with Colbert Nation videos too =)
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