Companies Keep Asking Us To Track You; We'd Rather You Be Protected From Tracking

from the the-ads-biz dept

We’ve talked in the past about the ridiculousness of the online advertising business. Over the last few years, the dollar value of most online ad revenue has declined drastically. Remember how musicians whined that their revenue dropped precipitously due to changes on the internet? I know how they feel — though rather than lash out and blame the internet or demand legal changes, I’m hoping that we can find a better way — and part of that is by reaching out publicly for support. Here’s the thing, though: while the dollar value on ads has continued to decline, there’s still been an explosion in companies filling up the online ad space. We’re contacted by between one and five internet ad companies every single day, asking us to put their ads on our site. They often make bold promises, which few can actually live up to. We ignore most of these requests. Many are obviously scammy or fly-by-night. Others use language that immediately turns us off. For example, there’s one company that emails basically every week promising to help us “fix” our “ad blocking problem” by forcing people using ad blockers to see ads. I don’t even want to bother letting them know that we let users turn off ads themselves if they want.

We recently received a pitch from a company offering to give us a lot of money if we’d let them track our users in a very specific way. They were, more or less, promising revenue rates that are approximately 3x to 5x what we currently get. After speaking to them, we recognized that they were serious and actually had put a lot of thought into making sure that they were taking users’ privacy into account. But, it still felt… sketchy. On top of that, to implement it, it would have required us to change our privacy policy, which just set off alarm bells for us. If we need to change our privacy policy to do something like that, it’s probably not worth it, just because we recognize how much many of you value your privacy, and even if they’re offering much higher rates, what good is that if we lose the trust of our readership?

In the meantime, we are always looking for ways to help keep Techdirt funded that are good for everyone, rather than ones that undermine trust or treat our community poorly. That’s why we have this ongoing partnership with Private Internet Access, the popular and excellent VPN service that helps stop companies from tracking you so carefully. And that’s why we’ll do things like make money off of affiliate fees from helping protect your privacy, instead of selling out any good will and trust by treating you “as the product” (as the slightly ridiculous saying goes). So we’ve told the tracking company no thanks and to take a hike. I doubt most other websites would do the same, but we thought it was the appropriate move and, in the interest of transparency, wanted to share our decision with you.

Obviously, I’m also not just writing this to pat ourselves on the back — but to give you some transparency into the fact that to keep Techdirt strong, we need support from you guys who make up our community. And, again, picking up your Private Internet Access VPN from us is one great way to support Techdirt (and help you protect your privacy). You can also buy stuff from our Deals Store or support us directly via our Insider Shop. And we’ll have some other stuff coming in the future (including, yes, more awesome T-shirts). We try to be overly cautious not to be too aggressive in asking for support, but after our experience with this one tracking company, it seemed appropriate to share that story and remind you of ways you can support us that don’t require that we change our privacy policy and compromise our values.

Filed Under: ads, journalism, privacy, tracking, vpns

Netflix CEO Says Annoyed VPN Users Are 'Inconsequential'

from the you-mean-nothing-to-me dept

When Netflix recently expanded into 190 different countries, we noted that the company ramped up its efforts to block customers that use VPNs to watch geo-restricted content. More accurately, Netflix stepped up its efforts to give the illusion it seriously cracks down on VPN users, since the company has basically admitted that trying to block such users is largely impossible since they can just rotate IP addresses and use other tricks to avoid blacklists. And indeed, that’s just what most VPN providers did, updating their services so they still work despite the Netflix crackdown.

Netflix’s frankly over-stated “crackdown” is an effort to soothe international broadcasters, justly worried about licensing content to a company that is demolishing decades-old broadcasting power centers. But even superficial as it may be, Netflix’s crackdown on VPNs still managed to erode user privacy and security, since obviously there are countless people using VPNs for reasons other than engaging in global Netflix tourism.

With that in mind, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings probably didn’t win any new friends this week when stated on the company’s latest earnings call that VPN users are loud but, ultimately, “inconsequential”:

There was uproar from customers, some of which simply use VPNs to protect their privacy, with a petition calling for the ban to be lifted attracting over 40,000 signatures. But it seems Netflix, which generally cherishes its user experience, doesn?t seem fussed by this uprising.

?It?s a very small but quite vocal minority,? CEO Reed Hastings said during this week?s earnings call. ?So it?s really inconsequential to us, as you could see in the Q1 results.?

And, if looking solely at growth, he’s not wrong; the company reported that it now serves 81.5 million members, 42% of whom are now outside of the United States. That’s 44,740,000 TV subscribers in the States alone, double Comcast’s latest tally of 22,347,000 TV customers. While investors are worried about growing competition from Amazon and grandfathered customers’ reaction to next-month’s price hike (actually announced two years ago), most customers, VPN or otherwise, aren’t leaving.

And while Netflix may be annoying some VPN users now, the company has repeatedly stated that its ultimate goal is to eliminate geographic broadcast restrictions entirely. That not only makes it so Netflix tourism is unnecessary, but it should reduce piracy — something Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt reiterated earlier this year at CES:

?Our ambition is to do global licensing and global originals, so that over maybe the next five, 10, 20 years, it?ll become more and more similar until it?s not different?… ?We don?t buy only for Canada; we?re looking? for all territories; buying a singular territory is not very interesting any more…. When we have global rights, there?s a significant reduction in piracy pressure on that content. If a major title goes out in the U.S. but not in Europe, it?s definitely pirated in Europe, much more than it is if it?s released simultaneously,? Mr. Hunt says.

In other words Netflix’s long-term vision may be to eliminate fractured broadcast licensing so users don’t need to use VPNs. But in the short term Netflix should probably try a little harder to avoid alienating its more technically savvy customers. They may be “inconsequential” now during Netflix’s heyday, but may prove important once Netflix’s streaming battle against Amazon, Hulu, Apple, and countless other companies starts to heat up.

Filed Under: customers, geo blocking, geo-restrictions, reed hastings, security, vpn, vpns
Companies: netflix

PayPal Continues To Drive People To Bitcoin And Other Solutions As It Starts Cutting Off VPNs & Open Internet Solutions

from the because-of-course-it-is dept

There’s a fairly long history of Paypal being completely obnoxious in shutting down the accounts of basically anyone challenging the status quo in any way. Nearly all of our stories about Paypal follow a similar pattern:

• Paypal cuts off MEGA because it encrypts files
• Paypal cuts of account for supporting Chelsea Manning
• Paypal cuts off Wikileaks
• Paypal cuts off Mailpile, encrypted email program
• Paypal cuts off Smashwords, because it doesn’t like some of its ebooks
• Paypal cuts off Diaspora
• Paypal cuts off a charitable secret Santa program
• Paypal cuts off Swedish ISP that stood for user freedoms

See a pattern yet? So, given all that, it’s hardly a surprise to find out that Paypal has cut off a VPN service, arguing that because it might possibly maybe be used for copyright infringement, Paypal won’t be a part of it. No, this doesn’t make any sense, but as you can see from the list above, it seems pretty clear that if there’s even a whiff of concern or challenging legacy businesses and beliefs, Paypal will cut you off. Because it can.

And, yes, there now are many other solutions out there, but Paypal still remains one of the easiest and most popular payment systems, even as many other companies try to take that crown away. Still, increasingly shutting off services that help protect users and enable an open internet seems like a piss poor way for Paypal to thank the open internet that made it possible in the first place. It seems likely that the more Paypal cuts these kinds of services off, the more likely it is that alternative payment systems will be deployed. Paypal may not care. After all, it’s been doing this for years, but sooner or later, it’s going to realize that it’s just been opening up a big opportunity for others.

Filed Under: money, open internet, payments, vpns
Companies: paypal

Netflix Pretends It Will Crackdown On VPNs Just Days After Admitting It's Futile To Do So

from the international-whac-a-mole dept

For a few years now, broadcasters have whined endlessly about the use of VPNs to access Netflix in markets where the streaming service had yet to launch. You’ll recall that Australian broadcasters in particular loved to throw hissy fits over the use of VPN technology, accusing customers (paying for both Netflix and a VPN) of being “pirates” for refusing to adhere to regional viewing restrictions. Of course, ignored amidst all this whining (and the futile attempts to ban VPNs) was the fact that these users wouldn’t be going to these lengths — if they liked the existing services being made available to them.

Last week, Netflix surprised everybody by announcing the service was now available in 130 additional countries, bringing the grand total of available countries to 190. And while this will certainly force many broadcasters to stop whining about VPNs and start competing, the fact remains that thanks to geographical licensing restrictions, the content being made available to Netflix customers in Canada will look dramatically different to the catalog available to users in Germany. As such, there’s been renewed interest in the use of VPNs to engage in what’s effectively global Netflix content tourism.

Netflix has made a few token gestures over the last year to appease broadcasters, such as fleeting efforts to thwart VPNs and geo-restriction avoidance tools. Those efforts were already in play in the 60 countries Netflix operated in before this recent expansion. But speaking at CES, Netflix exec Neil Hunt basically admitted that there’s not really all that much Netflix can do to stop VPN use, unless they want to waste calories on an international game of Whac-A-Mole:

“We do apply industry standard technologies to limit the use of proxies,? (Netflix chief product officer Neil) Hunt says. ?Since the goal of the proxy guys is to hide the source it?s not obvious how to make that work well. It?s likely to always be a cat-and-mouse game. [We] continue to rely on blacklists of VPN exit points maintained by companies that make it their job. Once [VPN providers] are on the blacklist, it?s trivial for them to move to a new IP address and evade.”

Clearly Netflix got some blowback for admitting the futility of VPN bans, however, as the company has since posted a new blog post full of non-statements that try to walk back Hunt’s comments a little bit:

“Some members use proxies or ?unblockers? to access titles available outside their territory. To address this, we employ the same or similar measures other firms do. This technology continues to evolve and we are evolving with it. That means in coming weeks, those using proxies and unblockers will only be able to access the service in the country where they currently are. We are confident this change won?t impact members not using proxies.”

Now most of the media read this statement to mean Netflix is implementing some severe new assault on VPNs, but if you read the statement carefully all Netflix is saying is it’s going to continue using the same tools they’ve always used. The same tools one of their key executives just got done publicly admitting don’t actually work. It’s simply not possible to really ban VPN use, but Netflix wants to make partners in its 190 service countries feel comfortable while it slowly but surely works toward eliminating geo-restrictive licensing entirely. Also said by Hunt at CES:

“Our ambition is to do global licensing and global originals, so that over maybe the next five, 10, 20 years, it?ll become more and more similar until it?s not different”…”We don?t buy only for Canada; we?re looking ? for all territories; buying a singular territory is not very interesting any more.”…?When we have global rights, there?s a significant reduction in piracy pressure on that content. If a major title goes out in the U.S. but not in Europe, it?s definitely pirated in Europe, much more than it is if it?s released simultaneously,? Mr. Hunt says.

More consistent licensing reduces piracy, but it also forces legacy companies to compete and upsets the status quo by weakening local broadcaster power, so expect 2016 to be jam-packed with oodles more hand-wringing over VPN and proxy use by companies terrified of change.

As an aside, if you were curious just how fractured Netflix content availability is by country (often because content rights are sold before Netflix can even bid), Finder this week released a pretty amazing breakdown of what’s available by country, an accompanying map highlighting global availability, and a breakdown of what percentage of the U.S. catalog is available in each country.

Filed Under: geoblocking, proxies, streaming, vpns
Companies: netflix

If The NSA's Not Complaining About Encryption, It's Likely Because It Has Already Found A Way In

from the we-left-ourselves-a-key-to-the-back-door-under-the-mat dept

The NSA hasn’t said much (well… compared to the FBI) over the past several months about the default phone encryption offered by Google and Apple. This lack of public outcry has to do with the NSA’s capabilities, rather than a sudden interest in ensuring people around the world have access to secure communications. If it truly felt the world would be a better place with safer computing, it wouldn’t have invested so much in hardware implants, software exploits and — its biggest black budget line — defeating encryption.

Where there’s no smoke, there’s a great deal of fire which can neither be confirmed nor denied. The NSA has very likely punched holes in encryption in existing encryption. But how does it do it? A brute force attack on encryption would be largely futile, even with the computing power the agency possesses. Alex Halderman and Nadia Heninger at Freedom to Tinker have a theory, and it involves a “flaw” in a highly-recommended encryption algorithm.

The key is, somewhat ironically, Diffie-Hellman key exchange, an algorithm that we and many others have advocated as a defense against mass surveillance. Diffie-Hellman is a cornerstone of modern cryptography used for VPNs, HTTPS websites, email, and many other protocols. Our paper shows that, through a confluence of number theory and bad implementation choices, many real-world users of Diffie-Hellman are likely vulnerable to state-level attackers.

For the nerds in the audience, here’s what’s wrong: If a client and server are speaking Diffie-Hellman, they first need to agree on a large prime number with a particular form. There seemed to be no reason why everyone couldn’t just use the same prime, and, in fact, many applications tend to use standardized or hard-coded primes. But there was a very important detail that got lost in translation between the mathematicians and the practitioners: an adversary can perform a single enormous computation to “crack” a particular prime, then easily break any individual connection that uses that prime.

The belief that these common primes (or at least some of them) wouldn’t be cracked relied on the assumption that no one entity would have the money to assemble the computing force needed to break the code. The problem is that the NSA likely has the time, money and power to tackle this enormous project. Here’s why it first seemed unlikely:

For the most common strength of Diffie-Hellman (1024 bits), it would cost a few hundred million dollars to build a machine, based on special purpose hardware, that would be able to crack one Diffie-Hellman prime every year.

And here’s the reality of the situation, as exposed by documents leaked by Snowden.

The 2013 “black budget” request, leaked as part of the Snowden cache, states that NSA has prioritized “investing in groundbreaking cryptanalytic capabilities to defeat adversarial cryptography and exploit internet traffic.” It shows that the agency’s budget is on the order of $10 billion a year, with over $1 billion dedicated to computer network exploitation, and several subprograms in the hundreds of millions a year.

What was once considered to be beyond the capabilities of even the biggest intelligence agency is obviously well within its reach. As the authors point out, this would explain the other information seen in leaked documents, like the NSA’s ability to decrypt some secured connections “on command” or eavesdrop on VPN traffic.

This is still just a theory, but it does seem to explain much of what’s been uncovered in leaked documents. It also shows the NSA is still doing what the NSA does best: leaving lots of stuff poorly-secured, despite directives otherwise.

Our findings illuminate the tension between NSA’s two missions, gathering intelligence and defending U.S. computer security. If our hypothesis is correct, the agency has been vigorously exploiting weak Diffie-Hellman, while taking only small steps to help fix the problem.

As the authors point out, the NSA has recommended better encryption methods, but no one’s in any hurry to adopt them because no one trusts the NSA to recommend a method it hasn’t already weakened, if not completely compromised. If there’s any truth to what’s covered here, the NSA has sat quietly by and allowed researchers to recommend yet another encryption method that it’s already made large strides towards defeating. And, once again, we can see that when the word “security” is combined with the word “national,” it means something completely different than when it stands on its own.

Filed Under: alex halderman, backdoors, diffie hellman, diffie hellman key exchange, encryption, hacking, https, nadia heninger, nsa, surveillance, vpns

Australia's SOPA Gets The Green Light

from the site-blocking-down-under dept

Last December, we warned that Australia was about to get its own version of SOPA. The key aspects of the proposed law were exactly the parts of SOPA that so concerned millions of people in America: the ability of someone to make a copyright complaint that would force an ISP or other third parties to block entire websites with little to no due process. In March, just such a bill was introduced, pushed by Attorney General George Brandis, who refused to listen to consumer advocates and their concerns (though he met plenty of times with Hollywood reps). Also, more importantly, supporters of the bill did not conduct any sort of cost/benefit analysis to see if it was worthwhile.

And now, that bill has been given the green light to move forward after the Parliamentary committee reviewing the bill voted to move forward with it — despite the lack of the cost/benefit analysis. From their recommendations, it appears that almost everyone on the committee has almost no clue about how this would work, the impact on free expression or the collateral damage created from blocking entire sites. Instead, it just takes for granted that “copyright infringement poses a significant threat to the viability and success of Australia’s creative industries” and thus something must be done! Even if that “something” won’t solve the problem and will actually create many more problems.

In addressing the lacking cost/benefit analysis, the committee more or less shrugs its shoulders and says, well, how about we add a plan to review how well this is working two years down the road.

The only dissenting view was put forth by Senator Scott Ludlam, who spoke out clearly about the problems of Australia implementing its own SOPA:

The Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015 is the latest in a long line of misguided attempts by the government to monitor, control and censor the Internet.

The Bill will allocate a significant new censorship power to the Court that will be used by copyright owners to block access to online content. However, there is a substantial weight of evidence showing that it will be relatively easy to evade the Bill’s provisions, that it does not contain appropriate safeguards, and that it may result in legitimate online sources being blocked.

Most importantly, there is also a significant weight of evidence showing that the Bill will not meet its aims, as it does not address the underlying cause of online copyright infringement: The continual refusal of offshore rights holders to make their content available in a timely, convenient and affordable manner to Australians.

As we had mentioned, there had been some concern earlier this year that the vague terms in the bill — specifically about “facilitating” infringement — could lead to VPNs being banned. When asked about that, defenders of the bill kept giving non-committal answers about that not being the target — and the committee report seems to accept that as fine, so long as there’s some sort of notation with the bill saying that it’s not intended to go after VPNs:

The committee acknowledges the evidence given by the Department of Communications regarding VPNs but notes that the Bill does not explicitly contemplate the introduction of injunctions against VPNs. The committee also notes that VPNs are unlikely to meet the ‘primary purpose test’ in proposed paragraphs 115A(1)(a)-(c). The committee would however be reassured if the government were to clarify the status of VPNs in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill.

What’s somewhat amazing to me is that a couple years ago, when it looked like Australia might actually introduce fair use into its copyright law, the copyright industry flipped out, arguing, in part, that because there wasn’t a history of case law to rely on, it would lead to craziness while the courts sorted things out.

Yet, amazingly, when it comes to this sort of site blocking, it appears the copyright maximalists take the exact opposite stance: arguing that it’s fine to let the courts flat out censor websites, because the courts will have lots of “discretion” to sort things out:

The committee takes the view that by providing the Court with a high level of discretion the Bill would allow the Court to both target specific issues that arise in individual cases and develop a general body of jurisprudence to provide more legal certainty into the future. As the Bill would allow the Court to tailor an order to the circumstances of a particular case, the committee expects that the Bill would encourage the Court to draft orders in such a way so as to effectively deal with the online copyright infringement but at the same time limit any unintended consequences such as over-blocking or accidental blocking.

Yeah, because courts never get tripped up by this kind of stuff…

And of course, Australia should know damn well how poorly this kind of stuff works in practice, because after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission tried to block about 1,000 websites a couple years ago, it accidentally knocked a quarter of a million sites offline because no one understood that multiple sites could share the same IP address. And yet, these are the same people voting to move forward with this plan to let the government simply declare websites “bad” and cut them off.

Again, as we noted back in the SOPA days, nearly every new technology has been declared a major “facilitator” of “piracy” by the copyright industries before they figured out how to use them. This includes: radio, recorded music, television, cable television, the photocopier, the VCR, digital music, the DVR, the MP3 player, online video and online storage lockers. All of them. Under bills like SOPA or this Australian version of SOPA, the industry is allowed to effectively kill such innovations early, making it more difficult for the content industries to adapt and embrace these new services which time and time again have been shown to make the industry more money in the long run.

It is the ultimate ignorant and lazy response of Australian politicians to believe that they need to block new innovations because the copyright industry refuses to innovate or figure out ways to better serve the public. And, even worse, they seem to feel the only way to do so is in a way that censors large parts of the internet, puts tremendous costs on ISPs (to be passed on to consumers), and which will only serve to drive infringement further underground, rather than magically convincing people to give extra money to Hollywood.

Filed Under: australia, censorship, copyright, site blocking, sopa, vpns

Australia Considers New Copyright Law That Could Be Interpreted To Ban VPNs

from the very-probably-nixed dept

Some months back, our own Glyn Moody wrote about the music industry in Australia and its attempt to basically broadly multiply copyright protections, routing around the public’s representatives in government to get ISPs to act as judge, jury and executioner. Then, because Glyn Moody is a witch who turned my sister into a newt, he wondered aloud whether VPNs would be the next target in the copyright industry’s crosshairs.

Well, it turns out that yes, yes they are. Only this time, the industry lobbyists are going right to the Australian legislature to act as their bullies with the Copyright Amendment Bill 2015.

If it is passed, copyright owners would be able to apply for a federal court order requiring internet service providers to block overseas sites whose primary purpose is infringing copyright or facilitating the infringement of copyright. While the bill is designed to target BitTorrent sites, such as the Pirate Bay, there are concerns other online services such as VPNs and digital storage lockers could fall victim.

The campaigns manager for Choice, Erin Turner, says at least 684,000 Australian households currently employ VPNs to bypass geoblocks and access overseas content at globally competitive prices.

No need to go half way here: if the bill is written and passed in its current vague iteration, VPNs and storage lockers absolutely will be under attack. Entertainment companies both foreign and domestic have been complaining for years about Australians using VPNs to route around geo-restrictions and get overseas content and it would be silly to pretend like infringers don’t use VPNs to conceal themselves. All that said, there are a ton of legitimate reasons to use a VPN or storage locker. That’s why crafting industry-specific legislation like this is so tricky, particularly when the target of the law is a widely used product of platform. There are simply going to be consequences that the public would consider unintended and that I consider specifically intended in the vagueness of the law. Copyright protection advocates always want more, never less, and they aren’t exactly known for behaving reservedly when they feel they have tools at their disposal.

The enemy here is ambiguity.

Copyright expert Kimberlee Weatherall says it is difficult to predict if the bill will be used by copyright holders to argue for an injunction against a VPN service because it lacks clarity regarding services and sites whose primary purpose is not copyright infringement, although may be being used for that purpose.

Which means that the law cannot be allowed to pass as it is currently written. Legislation doesn’t necessarily have to be specifically proscriptive, but a lack of clarity on a technology service so common and so tangential to the chief target of the bill means the bill sucks. Hell, it’s not like I’m making this concern up, even. Already content providers are arguing for tightened screws on Aussie VPNs.

Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder managing director Nick Murray told Mumbrella the current arrangements are only benefitting international players like Netflix because under the current production deals content is sold by territories.

Asked if it should be illegal for Australians to access overseas platforms using a VPN he said: “It should be. It should absolutely be regulated somehow to make it so people in Australia shouldn’t use VPNs.”Murray defended the arrangement of selling content by territory saying “that’s how we get our money” adding: “The people people who say we should get rid of the geo-blocker, it’s just bizarre, as that is how content is sold.”

Yes, arguing that something should change is bizarre because that thing hasn’t changed yet. Great argument you have there. But we can at least give Murray credit for being blatantly open and honest about his desire to take technology tools away from Australian citizens.

Filed Under: australia, bad laws, banning vpns, copyright, encryption, facilitation, vpn, vpns

Big Media Companies Insist That VPN Services Violate Copyright Law

from the fighting-the-tide dept

Back during the SOPA fight, in a discussion with someone who was working with the politicians pushing SOPA, I pointed out that such a law would encourage much more encryption — and the response was “that’s no problem, because we’ll just ban encryption next.” As stupid and impossible as such a statement is, it shows the mindset of some copyright extremists. Thus, it should be no surprise that they’re actually starting down just such a path in New Zealand. As we noted last year, Kiwi ISPs, frustrated that their users kept running up against geoblocks, have started offering VPN services that get around geoblocks as a standard feature there. Basically, this is nothing more than a recognition that the internet really is global and attempts to pretend otherwise are pretty fruitless.

However, the big media companies are not happy about this turn of events. A week or so ago, a bunch of them (Lightbox, MediaWorks, SKY, and TVNZ) teamed up to threaten New Zealand ISPs that if they didn’t stop offering “global mode” VPN services to customers, that the media companies would sue — arguing that merely offering such a service was copyright infringement. The letter is full of the usual bluster:

?Offshore providers, such as Netflix US, Hulu, Amazon Prime and BBC iplayer do not have the right to exploit the copyright works in New Zealand,? the letter says. Licenses they hold apply only to specific overseas locations and prohibit customers from circumventing geo-blocking measures and other content protections.

That may be true, but whether or not those companies are operating in New Zealand is not an issue that is of concern to the ISPs, who are providing internet access to the entire internet. If Netflix US, Hulu, Amazon and the BBC were the ones sneaking around the geoblocks, the companies might have a point. But arguing that merely offering a VPN service to users somehow violates the law seems like a crazy interpretation of copyright laws.

But, of course, crazy interpretations of copyright laws are the norm these days, and there are always some lawyers who will insist the media companies have a case, such as the lawyer quoted in that article. The basic argument seems to be a variation on felony interference of a business model:

The four are claiming that Global Mode, offered by Slingshot and Orcon, and similar services offered by other providers, are ?unlawful? for several reasons.

Top of the list is infringement of the Copyright Act 1994, ?either directly or as a joint tortfeasor?.

The four are also claiming the services are unlawful in providing ?misleading representations? in stating or implying ?without a proper basis? that it is lawful for New Zealand based users of the services to access content from the offshore providers, and that ?circumvention of geo-blocking measures in this way is permitted by New Zealand law (just like parallel importing of DVDs)?.

The four are also claiming that use of the services constitutes a clear breach of the terms and conditions of the offshore providers ? being the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime and BBC iPlayer.

From a loose reading of this it seems like they’re really arguing three things: (1) that offering such a service is a form of “inducement” to infringement, (2) that this is a form of circumvention of restrictions, which violates anti-circumvention clauses and (3) that this violates the terms of those video services.

The third argument is meaningless since that’s an issue between those services and the ISPs, not the media companies and the ISPs. The first one seems like a stretch but probably depends on a few factors, including how the services are marketed and whether or not merely viewing geoblocked content is a form of direct infringement (which seems like a stretch to me). The circumvention issue also seems like a stretch, but may depend on the specifics of New Zealand’s Copyright Act, which I’m not as familiar with. You can read it here though to see which sections might apply.

Either way, with the threat looming, at least one ISP has caved, saying it’s not worth the fight:

Unlimited Internet director Ben Simpson says that while his company doesn?t necessarily agree with that assertion, it has taken down the service nonetheless.

?Geo-unblocking services are a direct result of consumer demand for access to content that is not made available to the New Zealand market,? Simpson says.

?To be on the safe side, we have taken legal advice on this matter and I have made a firm call that we will sit on the sideline until a legal precedent has been set.?

Of course, whether or not offering such a service technically violates copyright law is kind of besides the point, as the very idea that offering such a service should be against the law is crazy. Such services provide real value to consumers not just in getting around pointless geoblocks, but also in protecting privacy. Trying to outlaw VPN services like that just to protect obsolete business models of media companies pretending the world is not global these days, just seems like yelling at the tide. But, given that it’s big old media companies we’re dealing with, they still haven’t figured out that going with the tide is much easier than ordering it not to come in…

Filed Under: circumvention, copyright, geoblocking, global mode, global service, inducement, new zealand, vpns
Companies: lightbox, mediaworks, orcon, sky, slingshot, tvnz, unlimited internet

Copyright Industry Keeps Asking For More In Australia: VPN Ban Next?

from the collateral-damage dept

Techdirt has been following the rather depressing saga of the Australian government’s attempt to ram through new copyright powers for some time now. As TorrentFreak reports, under great pressure from the Australian government, local ISPs have put together a draft voluntary code for dealing with alleged copyright infringement (pdf). The Australasian Music Publishers Association (AMPAL) has now weighed in, and basically wants everything to be much harsher, including the following:

“The Code does not place a general obligation on ISPs to monitor and detect online copyright infringement,” the publishers write. “AMPAL submits that ideally the Code should include such a duty using ISPs? monitoring and filtering techniques.”

…

“The Code does not require ISPs to block access to infringing material. AMPAL submits that ideally the Code should include provisions obliging ISPs to take such action following provision of the relevant information by Rights Holders and/or following discovery of copyright infringing websites by ISPs? monitoring and filtering techniques,” the publishers write.

…

“AMPAL submits that ideally additional options should be available to Rights Holders in the form of sanctions or mitigation procedures to be imposed on Account Holders,” the publishers write.

In other words, AMPAL wants to get ISPs do all the dirty work, turning them into both cops and executioner. But AMPAL isn’t alone in coming up with disproportionate responses to the ISP code. Via ZDNet, here’s a comment from BBC Worldwide (pdf), the wholly-owned commercial arm of the British broadcaster:

The Code is ill-equipped [to] deal with consumers who spoof or mask their IP addresses to avoid detection, behaviour that we believe will increase as a result of an introduction of a notice scheme.

The footnote for that point refers to a TorrentFreak article about Canadian piracy notifications boosting demand for VPNs, which confirms that what BBC Worldwide is concerned about here is the ease with which Australians will be able to use things like VPNs to evade sanctions by masking their IP address.

Of course, anyone who understands how the Internet works — and how people use it — has been pointing this out for years. But the worrying thing is that the copyright industry seems to be surprised by this possibility. Knowing the way it thinks, and its complete indifference to the collateral damage it might cause, the fear has to be that the next stage in its war on sharing will be demanding that governments ban VPNs.

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Filed Under: australia, copyright, copyright police, isps, monitoring, vpns
Companies: ampal

Rogers Exec Pouts About VPNs, Publicly Dreams Of Canadian Ban

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Over the years, many folks in the broadcast and entertainment industries have made it increasingly clear they’d love to see tools like VPNs or proxy services made illegal. Sure, both are perfectly legal and have a myriad of valid purposes, but because they can allow users to dodge anti-piracy snooping efforts (like the not-really effective U.S. six strikes program) or geo-blocks (like say watching Netflix in unsupported countries) — apparently they should be outlawed entirely. You know, like in Iran — and now Russia.

Canadian law professor Michael Geist notes that several Rogers, Bell and Shaw executives recently gathered for the Content Industry Connect conference in Toronto. There, Rogers Senior Vice President David Purdy spent some time complaining that VPNs “aren’t fair” and — according to at least one attendee — suggested that the government should think about banning them. You know, just because:

Purdy – need the govt to shut down VPNs, enforce copyright then can have a viable business #cicto

? Kelly Lynne Ashton (@klashton27) February 26, 2015

Purdy: if gov not willing to stop piracy, VPNs, BitTorrent not fair #cicto

— Marcia Douglas (@Marcia_Douglas) February 26, 2015

Rogers’ “me too” streaming video service Shomi isn’t really resonating with consumers, and blocking Canadian VPN/Netflix users would certainly be easier than actually competing. As Geist is quick to note, it’s unlikely that the Canadian government is going to want to wade into the minefield of banning VPNs, so all Purdy managed to do is make him and his company seem somewhat narrow-minded and unnecessarily aggressive:

“If Rogers is upset over VPN use to access U.S. Netflix, it should take it up with Netflix. Instead, focusing on consumer VPN use by suggesting that the solution lies in blocking legal technologies in order to stop consumer access is a dangerous one. Countries like China have tried to regulate VPNs, while Iran and Oman have tried to ban them. A Canadian attempt to do so would be subject to an immediate legal challenge, particularly since virtual private networks are widely used within the business community and play a crucial role for consumers in preserving user privacy, enabling access to information, and facilitating free speech.”

After Geist posted a number of attendee Tweets citing Purdy’s disdain for VPNs, a Rogers spokesperson denied that Purdy said anything of the sort, lamenting that it’s “hard to communicate a discussion via Twitter.” I’ve yet to find a transcript of the comments (and Purdy doesn’t appear to be responding to media inquiries), but given Rogers’ ugly history as a front-runner when it comes to net neutrality violations, quietly dreaming of a ban on VPNs certainly wouldn’t be out of character for the company.

Filed Under: canada, competition, copyright, david purdy, privacy, vpns
Companies: rogers