| 英文摘要 |
Geo-blocking as a second generation Digital Rights Management technology tool is used extensively by the copyright owners through licensing agreements for limiting access to their digital content on the basis of user’s geographical location. This business model, used otherwise for market segregation by content/service providers, complements the well-established principle of copyright territoriality and at the same time, protect economic interests of the copyright owners.
Large content holders in the audio-visual sector supplying content in different jurisdictions, use it en masse through obligation clause in the license agreements seeking compliance that copyright content is not allowed access in jurisdictions not covered by their licenses.
Netflix, the Online Video Distributor, though serve in Europe as well as in the United States, its geoblock implementation blocks customers in the United Kingdom from accessing the content offered by it in the United States. Similarly, Premier League football matches are allowed live streaming in the European Union only and customers from the United States and India are blocked from the access even when they are ready to pay for the subscription. This has triggered the use of circumvention technologies by which video streaming is done by users through encrypted pathways like Virtual Private Networks and Tor, a practice famously called as the onion routing, resulting in burgeoning of the online piracy in this sector.
The present paper tries to untwine the complex traditional application of copyright law to the practice of geo-blocking for regulating access to copyright protected works as well as the use of geo-circumvention technologies by users and intermediaries like Virtual Private Networks and Tor. The paper covers the technical aspects of the geo-blocking technology, its interface with traditional concepts of copyright like territoriality, licensing and the copyright issues it presents in the audio-visual sector due to the specificities involved, highlighting the grey areas in existing copyright framework. Some models proposed to govern geo-blocking remedies have also been included. The chapter includes a comparative analysis of copyright laws of United States, European Union, Australia, UK and India on the status of technology protection measures, discussing legality of geo-blocking as a Technology Protection Measures. In the last section, it analyses the legality of use of Virtual Private Networks to bypass the virtual locks, exploring the impact of use of such measures on the rights of copyright holders under copyright laws in India, Australia as well as in the European Union and the United States. |
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