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Australia: VPN Users Aren't Breaching Copyright (abc.net.au)
Slashdot reader Zanadou writes: The Australian Government Productivity Commission in a draft report recommended that Australian consumers should be able to legally circumvent geoblocking restrictions that have prevented them from using foreign online streaming services like Netflix, and that the Australian Government needs to send a clear message that it is not an infringement of copyright for consumers to be able evade geoblocking technology. Karen Chester, a commissioner with the Productivity Commission, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that geoblocking restrictions have the opposite effect of encouraging internet piracy. "Making copyright material more accessible and more competitively priced online, and not geoblocking, is the best antidote to copyright infringement."
In probably related news, Australia topped the list of countries who illegally downloaded the Game Of Thrones season six premiere, this week.
In January Netflix's chief product officer admitted that the company has no magic solution to subscribers who use VPNs to circumvent geoblocking.
In probably related news, Australia topped the list of countries who illegally downloaded the Game Of Thrones season six premiere, this week.
In January Netflix's chief product officer admitted that the company has no magic solution to subscribers who use VPNs to circumvent geoblocking.
Parallel Imports (I once worked for eBay Australia) was a laughable thing.
We were told, point blank, to ignore all parallel import takedowns because they were overreach. You'd get companies like Microsoft and Adobe going after EVERY person selling their product in Australia that wasn't an authorized Adobe/Microsoft dealer for Australia. So the end-game here was that US legitimate companies would geoblock selling to Australia by removing the shipping options to Australia and instead the Australians would buy from the third party unauthorized seller who marked up the software 30$ and sold worldwide from the US. Legally they could do this. But you'd later see Parallel import takedowns IF the listing was on eBay Australia because the companies didn't want this happening.
In the end, companies wanting to take down non-counterfeit products were sending notices saying the products were counterfeit. Which was not only false, but would not survive a lawsuit. This is a slippery slope for taking down actual counterfeit products (eg from Asian markets other than Japan) because it proves the company sending the notices are lying. So every notice gets scrutinized more than it needs to.
Asshole selling Adobe CS for 30$, definite pirate. Different guy selling it for 1200USD (the price at the time in the US) and ships to Australia... not a pirate.
On the flip side of this.
Australians love their pirate film and video games. Every single day hundreds of DVD-R copies of video games, DVD-R copies of movies make it on to eBay and they last about 4 hours before they're taken down. Up until Blueray became popular enough to supplant most casual dvd piracy sales, these were the easiest listings to pull down. People would put up a game console (eg an Xbox 360) and include 100 copied games. It was absolutely obvious in every instance. While it may have been legal to sell a "mod chipped" device in Australia, it was against eBay policy to list one, and that was often their first mistake. The second mistake was including any games. The Nintendo DS and "R4" devices were another popular piracy device, but these were a little harder to pull down. The DS didn't require modification, but if any copier devices were mentioned or in the photos, they were pulled down.
Quite apart from the geoblocking issue - there's a whole tonne of interesting recommendations in the draft report.
For those who aren't familiar, the Productivity Commission is a major Australian Government advisory body/think tank that conducts public inquiries into matters of economic policy. The Government requested a broad report into the economic effectiveness of the intellectual property system.
This report is a draft - the Commission is presently taking public submissions that will be considered for the final report later this year.
Highlights from the findings and recommendations:
All of which seems in line with what I consider sensible policy reform. Of course, whether the Government will consider any of these recommendations at all is a completely different question...
The reason content producers are doing it the way they are is simple. Money All the distributors are willing to pay $$$$$ for geographic distribution exclusivity. If they weren't granted it (say, to give Netflix the ability to show it too), then they'd only be willing to pay $, and Netflix pays $. So the math is obvious - with geographic limitations, you get $$$$$. With no geographic restrictions, you only get $$.
It's no longer about timing or variable pricing - timing on a lot of shows can be 24 hours worldwide, and pricing is set locally - based again on the exclusivity.
I'm sure Netflix COULD try to pay for worldwide distribution, but then you'd be basically paying $100/month for Netflix - because someone has to max up the difference in the money that the content producers will get going exclusive versus not.
Remember, you're paying for a right to a virtual monopoly, so you're going to pay a lot of money. If you're going to have to compete, you're not going to pay a lot of money. That's where the difference in the money is.
Now, more t hings like this could help reduce the payments - because those distributors will lean on the providers and tell them that unless they enforce the blocks, they're not going to pay so much anymore for the programming. Then it's a back and forth -- will the loss of money from that distributor be made up by offering other companies the right to distribute non-exclusively?
This is a complete media beat up about Australians pirating GOT more than any country. The source of the information https://torrentfreak.com/game-... quoted its statistics after collecting only HALF A DAY'S worth of data - ie. while Australia was awake and the rest of the English speaking world asleep. The exact same controversy happened last year, with the exact same source and statistical integrity.
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