Icelandic ISP's charged with copyright violation for giving access to Netflix...

[hardcore_gamer]

Only source I can give at the moment I am afraid: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fvisir.is%2Faetla-ad-kaera-tal-og-flix-til-logreglunnar%2Farticle%2F2013710299945

Bascially, Smaís (Iceland's copyright protection organization) is going to sue 2 internet service providers for showing/making it possible for their customers to access certain services like Netflix even though Netflix isn't offically accessable in Iceland.

Now, I will admit that I am not entirely sure if using some technical tricks to access Netflix even though its not offically accessable here is actually illegal or not or if Netflix frowns uppon something like this, but calling it COPYRIGHT VIOLATION even though the people doing it are PAYING for the content they are watching is completely insane.

Many people are enraged over this and are claiming Smaís is abusing the copyright idea to protect Iceland's own providers for tv and movie material which many people complain are selling their material at high and unfair prices. I for one, tend to agree.

Do you think it is reasonable to sue people for copyright violation for accessing Netflix even though its not offically accessable in your country even though you pay for the service?

[Clonehunter]

Iceland should have an Entertainment Revolt.

Give me five dollar movie bins or give me death! Yet I prefer the former! Wait, wait! I SAID FORM--

[Enjay]

Ever since technology that has the potential to give people the possibility of having open, world-wide access to movies and other entertainment media has existed, the people in charge of the industry have been looking for ways to carve up, restrict and enforce their own localised and financially unfair systems and to have them enshrined in law and enforced by whichever law enforcement systems they can get on board.

The regionalisation of DVDs has always struck me as an example of this where a potential "one format to buy and play anywhere in the world" system was ruined so that the entertainment industry could control what people could buy/watch where, when and for how much.

[Maes]

You know, ever since the DMCA was passed they could simply do away with ALL attempts of physically or logically impeding access to data, media or streams: anything digital that is not explicitly permitted to be copied is illegal to copy anyway, and legal action can start with any pretext or hint.

It doesn't need to actually have a copy protection mechanism implemented, and even it does, it can be purely symbolic (a "Keep Off" sign of sorts). Nothing more is required to get legal action started and "benefit" from the draconian DMCA articles, without investing in a costly actual encryption or copy prevention mechanism. Such mechanisms have proven worthless, so why bother?

I wonder how some super-competitive pointy-haired executive hasn't though about that yet: it would literally save the industry billions of dollars in copy protection schemes, it would change NOTHING over their ability to sue/track pirates/counterfeiters, and even the piracy rates would not change much for the worse, as crackers can figure out how to break encryptions and DRM in zero- or even minus- day time, by now. Actually, making their job easier (but subtly watermarking contents) could work better than trying to impede the occasional clueless newbie (who can go from newbie to 1337 h4xx0r r1pz0rz in less than an hour, thank to t3h 1nt3rn3ts, anyway).

[Quasar]

If the Trans-Pacific Partnership is ratified, it will be illegal to import copyrighted materials from other regions unless the copyright holder says it's OK.

That's right. The ability to buy and sell goods on the international market will be controlled by the media.

[crashhelper]

They can set these laws however they want, but that won't change the fact that all they really want is a little bit of that obamathrax.

[Maes]

Quasar said:

That's right. The ability to buy and sell goods on the international market will be controlled by the media.

Will the Mark Of The Beast be required?

[Jodwin]

hardcore_gamer said:

Do you think it is reasonable to sue people for copyright violation for accessing Netflix even though its not offically accessable in your country even though you pay for the service?

If any party in Iceland has signed an exclusive contract for distributing some material in the country (such as a movie), and if these ISPs make it possible to get that same material from an other distributor that normally wouldn't be available in Iceland, then technically the ISPs are breaking some sort of a law or a contract. No idea if it should be called copyright violation, though.

[Maes]

Jodwin said:

No idea if it should be called copyright violation, though.

Probably the right term is violation/circumvention of exclusive distribution rights -not any different than importing goods in markets which are not officially sanctioned by the manufacturer, or by bypassing official distributors, if they exist. It's a kind of grey market.

[Quasar]

Maes said:

Will the Mark Of The Beast be required?

I'm sure a UUID that is physically assigned to people and is a token in all of their financial transactions and license ownership certificates would be a boon to DRM schemes. ;)

[hardcore_gamer]

Maes said:

Probably the right term is violation/circumvention of exclusive distribution rights -not any different than importing goods in markets which are not officially sanctioned by the manufacturer, or by bypassing official distributors, if they exist. It's a kind of grey market.

Regardless, I don't think these kinds of lawsuits serve any purpose other then protecting the monopoly of Iceland's tv services have over our tv entertainment. Its insane how much you can be charged for access to a tv service, which often only actually included access to FOREIGN channels which the service provider/Icelandic TV industry has nothing to do with at all. Its all a giant rip-off, really.

Monopolies and poor competition has always been a problem in Iceland in general, though. Its hard to have strong competition in a isolated island economy of only 300 thousand people, so people are bascially used to being screwed with unfair prices and deals :(

[Maes]

hardcore_gamer said:

Regardless, I don't think these kinds of lawsuits serve any purpose other then protecting the monopoly of Iceland's tv services have over our tv entertainment. Its insane how much you can be charged for access to a tv service, which often only actually included access to FOREIGN channels which the service provider/Icelandic TV industry has nothing to do with at all. Its all a giant rip-off, really.

Well, that's an important element you left out so far. If there's a monopoly being threatened, then of course it will act in any way necessary (fair or unfair, directly or by proxy) to protect itself, especially if that company also provides pay-per-view and premium content, in which case there would be an obvious conflict of interest if people had access to a free (or cheaper) alternative. The only way out would be for Netflix to officially enter the market. Surely nobody dares contest the Absolute Value that is Free Market and Competition, even in commie Iceland?!

[hardcore_gamer]

Maes said:

Well, that's an important element you left out so far. If there's a monopoly being threatened, then of course it will act in any way necessary (fair or unfair, directly or by proxy) to protect itself, especially if that company also provides pay-per-view and premium content, in which case there would be an obvious conflict of interest if people had access to a free (or cheaper) alternative. The only way out would be for Netflix to officially enter the market. Surely nobody dares contest the Absolute Value that is Free Market and Competition, even in commie Iceland?!

When I said monopoly I meant ALL of the people selling access to TV material (whether its on DVD's or on the TV) in the country, not just some one single party.

Digital instant access to TV material hasn't really gotten big in Iceland yet, safe for a few medicore Icelandic services.

[Maes]

hardcore_gamer said:

When I said monopoly I meant ALL of the people selling access to TV material (whether its on DVD's or on the TV) in the country, not just some one single party.

I'm not familiar with Iceland's economy and TV market, but as you said, it's a small place, and it would make perfect sense if there was only ONE company or at most a cartel of companies effectively controlling all A/V media distribution in Iceland, including conventional OTA TV, PPV services and physical DVD releases.

There's one aspect in which they are right however: to broadcast in a country, you need a state license. Has Netflix got such a license? Obviosly not. To distribute a movie or TV series in a country, you need the permission of the copyright's holder. Does Netflix have such a license for Iceland, at all? No, since it has no business there.
Does it have an official presence/has it applied for such a license or expanded to Iceland? No, it hasn't. Does its accessibility constitute unfair competition for the local monopoly/violation of national laws regarding broadcasting and movie distribution licensing? Yes and yes, by all chances.

TL; DR: foreign service became accessible through Internet in Iceland, thus bypassing national TV and movie distribution laws and permits, which of course pissed off the local monopoly.

As I said, there are two possible outcomes at this point: either Netflix will block its traffic towards Iceland (or the Icelandic courts will order Icelanding ISPs to do it), OR Netflix officially expands to Iceland and competes head to head with the local monopolies, legitimizing its business presence.

There's also a third "mixed" option, in which Netflix only offers a limited amount of content to Icelanders, chosen so that it doesn't violate competition/monopolies.

[fraggle]

The automatic translation isn't very good, so it's difficult for me to understand the details of this story.

But from what I can understand it sounds like the problem is a service called flix.is which allows customers to pay to access Netflix from inside Iceland. Presumably it provides something like a VPN that routes traffic to another country so that Netflix thinks they're customers from that other country. It certainly sounds like a rather dubious business to be providing.

Tal is the ISP they're suing, but it's not clear how they're related, other than being an ISP. ISPs ought to be considered "common carriers" and not responsible for this kind of thing.

[Aliotroph?]

This is weird. Iceland has so few people that you'd think they'd simply out the executives of any local company that tried to restrict what foreign content they could buy. A consumer backlash could actually work because relatively few people would have to boycott them or refuse them service before it hurt them.

[hardcore_gamer]

fraggle said:

But from what I can understand it sounds like the problem is a service called flix.is which allows customers to pay to access Netflix from inside Iceland. Presumably it provides something like a VPN that routes traffic to another country so that Netflix thinks they're customers from that other country. It certainly sounds like a rather dubious business to be providing.

Interesting. I will post an image of their frontpage (the same you just linked to) with everything translated to Icelandic. Perhaps it will make you understand it better so that it becomes more obvious wether what they are doing is fine or not.

EDIT: I am sorry for these images being so large.