VPN services violate copyright law insist large media firms

New Zealand ISPs threatened with action from Lightbox, Sky, MediaWorks

Large media companies have condemned the decision of ISPs in New Zealand to offer "global" VPN services that let domestic users access international content as a violation of copyright law.

New Zealand ISP Slingshot's website asks, "Ever tried to go to a website, only to be told you can't see it because you live in New Zealand? We think that's bizarre, and it's why we have introduced Global Mode."

Other ISPs in the country - including Orcon and Bypass - offer similar services, and now are all being targeted by Lightbox, MediaWorks, Sky and TVNZ for breach of copyright.

The accusation has come in the form of cease and desist letters signed by all the companies together.

"We pay considerable amounts of money for content rights, particularly exclusive content rights," reads the letter.

"These rights are being knowingly and illegally impinged, which is a significant issue that may ultimately need to be resolved in court in order to provide future clarity for all parties involved."

The companies suggest action should not be taken "against consumers" who use the "global" service, but that this is now a "business-to-business issue" and is about "creating a fair playing field".

Netflix launched in New Zealand and Australia in late March 2015, with reportedly 5,000 fewer titles than the US store - a claim neither confirmed nor denied by Netflix.

In the UK, using VPNs is not technically illegal, but there have been consistent reports of Netflix users seeing error messages when attempting to access non-UK content on the service through VPNs, the suggestion being that Netflix is detecting and blocking such attempts.

Indeed, the company has before admitted it "uses industry standard methods to prevent illegal VPN use". The ongoing disagreement seems to hinge on how "industry standard" some of the company's tactics actually are.