Legality of Geo IP Blocking workarounds?

Zirconia

Just want to see what other users here. As per the charter, I am not going to mention any services, products or methods to circumvent this blocking.

I'm quite confident that using methods to get around Geo IP blocking are in fact perfectly legal and that it is within everyone's rights to implement such a workaround without any fear of being prosecuted - there are no laws being broken here.

I use facilities to circumvent Geo IP blocking myself, and while the content providers might prefer that I don't have access, geo blocking is simply a mechanism to make access more difficult for those outside the catchment area, in the same way that, say BBC broadcasts are focused to cover their mainland. Picking up BBC Radio 4 outside the UK is undesirable to the BBC, but it's not Illegal, and the same logic applies to Geo IP Blocking.

Rabidlamb

There was no qualms dealing out the DNS changes for US Flixster, I absolve you of all your sins, go in peace my child.

FSL

Most Geo blocking on broadcaster's web sites is because they only have the broadcast rights for a particular geographic area.

As far as a broadcaster is concerned the bigger the audience the better but where they only have rights for a particular geographic area they can't be seen to be breaking that agreement by also broadcasting on the internet outside of their region.

For instance I can listen to BBC Radio 5 live sports commentaries on satellite radio but not on their web site. That's because geographically the satellite's footprint covers my location but if I was in Australia it wouldn't.

yoyo

The reason we (Mods of this forum) do not allow talk of using VPN/Proxy services to bypass GeoIP blocking is that it essentially boils down to copyright infringement. The reason being that the licensors of the content only grant their permission for that content to be broadcast in certain locations.
The other side to this is that in Ireland we can receive BBC stations, Channel 4 et al. so why would they be blocked? Its an interesting one, however I'm sure the licensors have their reasons for the iplayer/etc. content not to be allowed over here. It should also be noted that most of these streams use the RTMPE (Encrypted) protocol for online content delivery, so by using a vpn you are "circumventing" this encryption

Nick

Socialist_Pig

yoyo wrote: »

so by using a vpn you are "circumventing" this encryption

Nick

but circumventing encryption in and of itselfn isnt illegal?

yoyo

Socialist_Pig wrote: »

but circumventing encryption in and of itselfn isnt illegal?

In most cases no, but it is a "dodgy" area all the same. So best not discussed .
The more important part to it is the fact using methods to bypass blocking goes against the license for the content, which could be considered the same as downloading the TV episode illegally etc.

Nick

bonzodog2

I regularly listen to BBC 5Live with iPlayer, they don't restrict it like they do with the TV, had to start doing this more recently as there is someone downstairs who has a TV on that interferes with AM reception, which otherwise is OK in the early hours.