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New Zealand ISPs Back Down On Anti-Geoblocking Support

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-ahead-and-watch dept.

angry tapir writes: A number of New Zealand Internet service providers will no longer offer their customers support for circumventing regional restrictions on accessing online video content. Major New Zealand media companies SKY, TVNZ, Lightbox and MediaWorks filed a lawsuit in April, arguing that skirting geoblocks violates the distribution rights of its media clients for the New Zealand market. The parties have reached an out-of-court settlement.

50 comments

  1. We, the one who pay our hard earned cash ... by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... always got short changed

    Country by country, region by region, media by media, they will find ways to fleece us

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:We, the one who pay our hard earned cash ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ... always got short changed

      Country by country, region by region, media by media, they will find ways to fleece us

      People never ever learn the lesson.

      What's the difference between

      -pirating content
      -paying to access content your not allowed because of ip geographic restrictions ?

      For media companies NONE AT ALL. THEY'RE THE SAME THING.
      So save yourself trouble, and pirate directly. The end result is exactly the same.

    2. Re:We, the one who pay our hard earned cash ... by cvdwl · · Score: 1

      Mod up!

      It's infuriating as an expat to try to get content in the language I want. Yes, there are solutions, but almost all are technically illegal one way or the other.

      --
      ... grumble, grumble, grumble, mutter, mutter, Millenium... Hand... Shrimp, I tol' 'em, I tol' 'em.
    3. Re:We, the one who pay our hard earned cash ... by SairaAwan · · Score: 1

      You are right. http://www.rawalpindiforum.pk/

    4. Re:We, the one who pay our hard earned cash ... by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 1

      It's even more infuriating for non-expats who are not native speakers of English. Nobody except my long dead grandpa wants localized content, except perhaps for books, but even literary translations are getting less and less popular. Most literary translations suck, too, especially for genres like Science Fiction. Movies are the worst, their lip syncing is an abomination. And don't let me get started with video games, for some reason foreign voice actors are always worse than the original.

      Almost everybody speaks English nowadays anyway, so at least they should give us a choice.

    5. Re:We, the one who pay our hard earned cash ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why the common people have the power of government, because they do NOT have the power of money. Libertarians take issue with common people having power, which is the root of their opposition to government power.

  2. Get half a dozen boxes all over the world by behrooz0az · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been doing it for 8+ years now, takes some time to set up all the applications(transmission, youtube-dl, proxychains, rsync, ...), but it's very well worth the time.
    One in Germany, one in UK, one in LA, one in SEA. You can have access to every damn file on the Internet.

    --
    Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion. -- Spazmania (174582)
    1. Re:Get half a dozen boxes all over the world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Too bad you can't watch anything region locked to within New Zealand.

    2. Re:Get half a dozen boxes all over the world by black3d · · Score: 4, Funny

      There is absolutely no content that is region-locked to New Zealand that is worth watching, that isn't already available elsewhere.

      --
      "The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
    3. Re:Get half a dozen boxes all over the world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nobody wants to watch Shortland Street anyway...

    4. Re:Get half a dozen boxes all over the world by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      I heard it was the cheapest place to watch the English Premier League games, without previous sports package TV service.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    5. Re:Get half a dozen boxes all over the world by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      I've seen Shortland Street on ipt

  3. Too many negations by tentative · · Score: 2

    It wouldn't be untrue to say that this wasn't unexpected.

  4. Free Trade... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So why does "Free Trade" not apply to tax payers / voters ?

    I can buy Books, DVDs, CDs, in fact any physical item and ship it to New Zealand. Why can I not do the same with Digital Media (which is what DVDs etc are anyway).

    1. Re:Free Trade... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because they think your dvd player will only play dvds made for your region, the fools!

    2. Re:Free Trade... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      If you enjoy that hypocrisy, you'll love the fact that, not only is 'arbitrage' only OK when corporations do it(filthy consumer peons are 'grey market' at best, illegal at worst); but New Zealand is, ironically enough, simultaneously treated as the ass end of nowhere when it comes to offering media for sale and putting up absurdly generous subsidies to media producers.

    3. Re:Free Trade... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why innovate when you can legislate?

    4. Re:Free Trade... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Free trade means you are free to trade, but not forced to trade. It prevents governments from limiting your trading, but it does not prevent you from limiting your trading. And that's what businesses do: They trade freely among themselves, but limit who they sell to in order to maximize their profits.

    5. Re:Free Trade... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually NZ was an interesting case.

      The Movie "The Piano" was a NZ movie, however it was not released as a zone 4 DVD.

      The Labour government (left leaning) at the time said "If you legally buy the DVD from overseas, you should be able to play it" and made zoning illegal as it was an anti-competitive measure. The National Government (Right leaning) scrapped it, however it is still easy to get DVD players that are unzoned.

    6. Re:Free Trade... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not true. Zoning was never illegal, as that would have made it illegal to sell any DVDs or players made abroad in New Zealand, which was never likely to be a winning idea.

      What we did gain in the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 was the right not only to make our DVD players region-free, but also to sell them in that state to begin with, and to instruct/help others to convert theirs. That was a big deal in 2008, and was supported by all major parties. Then a bunch of idiots protested because they claimed (completely inaccurately) that the act introduced "three strikes", "guilt by accusation" standards for cutting off people's internet connections.

  5. It has started. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And know they have got their own way with out going to enfore it in court they will now go after every VPN companies in NZ, then Oz and then the world.

    1. Re:It has started. by black3d · · Score: 1

      TPPA will give corporations the ability to have VPNs and VPN users in signatory nations shut down, and will be used to do exactly that.

      --
      "The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
    2. Re:It has started. by KGIII · · Score: 1

      What if I run my own VPN?

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  6. Future parent company already calling the shots? by NimbleSquirrel · · Score: 3, Informative

    What the article doesn't state is that CallPlus is in the midst of being acquired by Australian company M2, and there has been speculation that M2 is behind the sudden settlement. Up until now, CallPlus were quite proudly sticking up for Global Mode.

    It is a shame that this is not being tested in court. I do believe that the Section 226(b) of the New Zealand Copyright Act would have applied here:
    "for the avoidance of doubt, [a Technological Protection Measure] does not include a process, treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that, in the normal course of operation, it only controls any access to a work for non-infringing purposes (for example, it does not include a process, treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that it controls geographic market segmentation by preventing the playback in New Zealand of a non-infringing copy of a work)"
    It is the one reason that region free DVD and BluRay players are legal here. New Zealanders were using Global Mode to view legitimate content that they paid for; content that was otherwise unavailable to them due to geographic market separations.

    The ones to lose out here are the various studios that are content producers. At least with Global Mode, people were still paying for the content. Now, with the demise of Global Mode, and the hassle of having to sort out a separate VPN provider, the number of people turning back to torrenting is just going to explode. Of course this is all because the local Media Distributors want their cut, as if the millions they already get weren't enough. These are the same Media Distributors who delay releases by months or even years to try to capitalize on popularity while paying the lowest possible price for broadcast rights (the reason many NZers flocked to Global Mode in the first place).

    Given their talk in about this being so illegal, the fact that NZ Media Distributors are not proceeding with testing this in court means they have probably realised that a conclusive victory in their favour is simply not possible. Of course this does not stop them from trumpeting this as a win for them, which it really isn't.

  7. Nobody has a right to a market by 91degrees · · Score: 2

    Companies contend there's little incentive to buy content from other providers if their customers already have access to it online.

    So don't then. The customers don't need it. They can access it online.

    We don't outlaw bread making machines in order to keep bakers in business either.

    1. Re:Nobody has a right to a market by NotInHere · · Score: 1

      There is a difference. Content is consumed for the "informational" content it has, while bread is bought to eat its substance. While I think a 25 year limit after creator death is a good copyright term, the content creators still need something they can live off. You don't need to block geoblock-circumvention services for that I think.

    2. Re:Nobody has a right to a market by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      American in the U.S. here. I'm for a 30 year copyright for media, and 70 year copyright for text (i.e. books).

      The issue is that Netflix and the like are only paying for a license to show it to a certain audience. That audience is of a certain size. It would be unfair for Netflix to allow those outside of the audience to watch it when Netflix didn't pay the higher licensing fee.

      Now, when it's not available whatsoever, that gets into a gray area. Do we have

    3. Re:Nobody has a right to a market by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There is no such thing as "a certain audience"..
      If you operate a movie theatre, you can't check passports on the door and only allow citizens of a specific country to enter.
      You can't stop someone sending physical media across borders, although the north koreans keep trying.

      Refusing to sell content to someone based on their location or nationality should be illegal as it's discrimination. Similarly, trying to carve the world up into arbitrary areas so you can enforce exclusive distributors in each area is anti-competitive and should also be illegal.

      If you want to charge someone to view your content, then you should do so in a non discriminatory way - ie anyone can view it and for the same price (external factors like taxes, shipping costs notwithstanding). Anything else should be illegal.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    4. Re:Nobody has a right to a market by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      I can understand this for the basic author's copyright, but the companies involved here aren't creators. Or consumers. They're middlemen. We don't need them. If we get content from another source, (e.g. Netflix US), the copyright owner still gets money. It comes from Netflix US rather than the local NZ distributor.

      The publisher knows full well that some people will be using Netflix US through VPN or DNS spoofing services, and that this represents an increased value fro the company so will charge accordingly.

    5. Re:Nobody has a right to a market by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I don't entirely disagree, but the practice of regionalising distribution is an attempt by the publisher to have its cake and eat it too.
      When they film a TV show, or create a tangible product, in one place, exploiting local price differentials to keep production costs down, then selling at a different price in every region, to maximise their profit, they are explicitly denying their customers the same choice that they themselves made during production.

    6. Re:Nobody has a right to a market by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      If you operate a movie theatre, you can't check passports on the door and only allow citizens of a specific country to enter.

      True, but you can be pretty certain that someone coming in to your movie theater is physically located in your country. It's also a reasonable assumption that it's legal for them to be there.

      You can't stop someone sending physical media across borders, although the north koreans keep trying.

      Maybe you can't achieve perfect enforcement, but I would guess that every country in the world has laws about what physical items can be brought into or sent out from that country.

      Refusing to sell content to someone based on their location or nationality should be illegal as it's discrimination. Similarly, trying to carve the world up into arbitrary areas so you can enforce exclusive distributors in each area is anti-competitive and should also be illegal.

      I agree that that's a great ideal. The problem is, under who's jurisdiction? For example, the United States has very little control over what companies do in other countries (openly, anyway; I'm sure there's plenty of military and economic threats being passed around back channels), nor can the United States force companies from other countries to sell in the United States. You would need either an international treaty, which the media companies would never allow, or a world government with this kind of authority, which the UN is unlikely to get any time soon.

    7. Re:Nobody has a right to a market by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Refusing to sell content to someone based on their location or nationality should be illegal as it's discrimination.

      How about charging a difference price for students or retirees?

      (My position: I agree with you, and think the same thing should apply to students, retirees, etc. If you want to subsidise students, give them money directly, don't give them discounts on services they may or may not use.)

    8. Re:Nobody has a right to a market by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you want to subsidise students, give them money directly, don't give them discounts on services they may or may not use.

      It's not a subside, it's pricing discrimination. Price discrimination is used to increase profits. In this case, more students will go see the movie, because they get a lower price. Non-students are less price sensitive and will go anyway at the higher price. Price discrimination is the "free hand" ripping you off, because it is not an efficient market, but an exploitative one.

    9. Re:Nobody has a right to a market by NotInHere · · Score: 1

      I think the main problem movie studios face is sheer logistics. Its not evil-dom, and perhaps only a small grain of it. Think about it: you have produced a movie, and don't know how successful it will be. Do you want to manufacture millions of DVDs in vain, or only tens of thousands? These are all costs you have to bear, I guess. With every new movie being its own financial risk, its hard to release a movie world-wide without cost problems. Next are the cinemas. I guess the australian cinema companies are quite accustomed to having a pre-ordered list of successful films from the US releases. If there is an unsuccessful one, they can cancel shows. This adoption in small steps is what google is doing too for play store app updates.

      English has 1.8 billion speakers. You can't target them all, in cinemas across the world, in one day. Yes, perhaps you have fast enough internet to rsync a 4k HD 3D movie to thousands of cinemas. But explain sending their intellectual property they have worked their assess of for the last months or years over the internet, the "spooky place" with the pirates, to a movie label.

      But I agree, they can be a lot less fucked up.

  8. Where's your Haka now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Were once such a proud people. Pity.

    1. Re:Where's your Haka now? by MoaDweeb · · Score: 1

      Proud? Not so sure.
      Arrogant? Yes.

      Especially with Rugby Union - we have both championships tied up:
      World's Worst Losers & World's Worst Winners.

      Go Black! :-)

      --
      New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
  9. first you do something stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and then you complain that it doesn't work, and people outsmart you?

    1. Re: first you do something stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then you make outsmarting the government illegal. Oh wait, it is already. In this case you round up all the smart people and have them deported or eliminated. That's how you build great countries like Australia.

  10. Southern Cross Cable by monkeyxpress · · Score: 1

    Awesome. Now they just need to sort out the southern cross cable monopoly that works like a geo-blocker for the entire country when everyone tries to get on youtube at the same time after work.

  11. Re:Future parent company already calling the shots by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

    It's certainly the case that Team Content is already pretending that they have been so judged; but for the purposes of the copyright act you cite above, the DMCA, and similar laws where 'technological protection measure' is emphasized; it doesn't seem at all clear that 'geoblocking' qualifies.

    At least up until now, 'technological protection measure' that protects access to a copyright work means some sort of DRM system. If you purchase something on ITMS, or stream a Netflix video or the like, using a VPN to be treated like a US customer, all DRM remains in place, operating as specified, no circumvention tools are in use at the DRM-system level; only at the market access level(and if that's a 'circumvention tool', then so are some plane tickets to a different country).

    Sure, people in distant-monopolistan gaining access to a larger market is bad for whoever purchased 'exclusive' rights to exploit them; but the mere unhappiness of a distributor doesn't imply any copyright violation is occurring. You purchased the material from a distributor in its market area, imported it to New Zealand, and are now watching it at home. More convenient over the internet; but not architecturally different from picking up a book while waiting at Heathrow and carrying it back with you. Maybe the Customs guys want you to pay tax on the value of your imported netflix stream; but that's wholly unrelated to copyright law.

  12. A better title would be: by ciaran2014 · · Score: 1

    New Zealand ISPs cave and support Geoblocking

    --
    Help build the anti-software-patent wiki
  13. Pity we don't have a court judgement to point to by ukoda · · Score: 2

    It is a pity this didn't reach court and had a judgement made. I think NZ law is pretty clear and the media companies would have lost. That would have been good as it would have put them on notice to shut up and rethink their business model in view of global communications. As it is they will take this as a victory and will now act as if it was actually illegal to bypass geo-locks, using this result to hassle the next company to offer such a service.

    If I travel to the USA, buy a legal DVD, fly back to NZ and watch it here it is all legal. So how is that different from having my Internet connect travel to the USA, purchasing a media file and bringing it back to NZ to watch. Both cost time and money but offer more choice. Morally and/or legally is there any difference?

  14. Re:Future parent company already calling the shots by NimbleSquirrel · · Score: 1

    it doesn't seem at all clear that 'geoblocking' qualifies.

    What else is geoblocking other than geographic market separation? There is no other use for geoblocking other than to control access so that different regions can be charged differently to maximise profits. The way that section of the Copyright Act is worded does not make Technological Protection Measures absolutely the same as DRM; it covers DRM, but can be applied to other things too.

  15. Re:Future parent company already calling the shots by KGIII · · Score: 1

    Do not mistake this for being a fan. I think you will find it *may* be a violation of copyright - copyright holders are free to decide the terms of their license. They could say, for example, you must stand on one foot to license a copy for streaming. They can also, more likely to pass the court's smell test, say that you must reside within a certain area to be eligible for x-license. They would easily be within their rights and the thing is, well, the laws of their country do not apply - the laws of the rights holder's country apply. I may be mistaken but I have dealt with copyright quite a bit as well as trademark but I am not a legal professional nor an expert. I welcome corrections if I am mistaken.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  16. Re:Pity we don't have a court judgement to point t by KGIII · · Score: 1

    The license it for your use. In the first case, bringing the DVD back, it might actually be in violation of the license you have with the media company. Will they prosecute it? Not for one disc. Try bringing back 10,000 and see what happens. I do not agree with this but, well, you know the routine...

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  17. Re:Pity we don't have a court judgement to point t by ukoda · · Score: 1

    I don't know about the license on the DVD or the related legality under US law to export them but I do know that to bring in 10,000 to NZ would be perfectly legal as long was they were not pirated copies. Of course TPPA will like force a law change to ensure Kiwis pay way more than they do now.

  18. Re:Pity we don't have a court judgement to point t by KGIII · · Score: 1

    They might be considered pirated if they have some sort of mention about only being authorized for use in the United States or similar. They are pretty sneaky bastards. I do not agree with them, at all, but was rather pointing to the legal potentials. I also suspect that US law would apply and NZ would happily comply.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  19. Re:Pity we don't have a court judgement to point t by ukoda · · Score: 1

    Your points are valid but I assume they don't apply, yet... I'm basing that on the fact that companies like The Warehouse are curreently doing grey market imports and they are too high profile not to have checked where they stand legally.

  20. Re:Pity we don't have a court judgement to point t by KGIII · · Score: 1

    Then no, it probably is not illegal. Else I am guessing the powers that be would have come knocking them down.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."