Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx
...And another example is access to digital content eg movies. Our gov't actively encourages us (by not discouraging it) to go ahead and get around foreign geo restrictions.
And Canada and NZ are also taking steps along those lines...
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Not entirely correct Lynxy one, but mostly so except for the following
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The 2 ISPs (both, in fact, owned by the same company) in NZ that provide the Global Mode mentioned in the article have been under investigation over the last few months by the NZ Office of Film and Literature Classification.
Of course, this is not a copyright or contractual rights issue but a classification one; your comment about little sympathy for geo-restrictions is correct.
The Global Mode mentioned is unlike VPN in that it is the local ISP that obfuscates their customers' IP addresses to that of another country (the software was developed in NZ) on their customers' behalf and so it is considered that the local ISP may be complicit in illegally circumventing censorship and classification of films by the showing of non NZ classified content. As far as I know this has not been resolved yet, one way or the other.
This classification issue could affect ISPs providing Global Mode with respect to book and magazine download from overseas suppliers too, where the sale of a book is banned or be illegal to possess here, or classified R18; the former would be mainly child porn, extreme violence, etc., and the latter being some magazines. The ISP may be regarded as being complicit in their supply.
The developers of the Global Mode have stated that in their opinion Global Mode will only be of short term interest in NZ as to compete against it local and overseas companies will provide competitive streaming services (and this is looking like it may be so).
It is said that rights holders are upset by the Global Mode but as far as I know none have taken formal action against the ISPs (that might be because of local streaming services starting up and the apparent sudden increased willingness of overseas streamers to start streaming to NZ, but I don't know that).