The party is currently preparing for the general election in September. While Dotcom will not be on the voting ballot himself, he remains one of the main influencers of the party’s policy.

As the name suggests, many of the party’s core issues revolve around the Internet, copyright included. Today the Internet Party released a draft of its copyright policy with several suggestions for an overhaul of current legislation.

One of the key issues the Internet Party wants to change is the liability New Zealanders face for using VPN services and other circumvention tools to access legal content. At the moment, it is illegal for them to stream content from U.S-based Hulu and Netflix via proxies or VPNs.

TorrentFreak spoke with Kim Dotcom who notes that consumers shouldn’t be punished for the inability of Hollywood to release its content globally. Dotcom hopes that these changes will eventually put a stop to the unnecessary release delays.

“The primary goal of this policy is to force copyright holders to release their content globally, without geographical restrictions. If a TV-show is not available in New Zealand for three months after the U.S. release, there should be no enforcement during this period,” Dotcom tells us.

“Content owners should be held responsible, not the public. The ‘geo blocking’ proposal forces Hollywood to change its business model and release its content worldwide without delays,” he adds.

Dotcom hopes that the Internet Party proposal will serve as model for future copyright law that will eventually be adopted around the world.

Internet Party leader Laila Harré notes that the current situation is unmanageable. The Internet has made it possible to release content worldwide without any delays, but content owners refuse to give consumers what they want.

“A Kiwi who wants to watch the latest season of first run TV shows like Games of Thrones, for example, shouldn’t be forced to jump through hoops to access what should be legally and easily available online. It’s a ridiculous situation in this day and age,” Harré notes.

Thus far most progress has subsequently been drawn in the opposite direction. In an attempt to crack down on people who bypass geo restrictions, Hulu recently started to ban all visitors who use a VPN connection.

Instead of fighting circumvention, the Internet Party believes that copyright holders should address the root of the problem themselves. Making sure that the latest TV-shows can be watched legally is a must, and although some progress has been made over the years, the legal options are still lacking.

“Some excellent work has been done by some copyright owners and content providers to make good legal options available to New Zealanders. But there’s still a long way to go, especially for some types of content such as globally popular first run television shows broadcast overseas but not available in New Zealand for weeks or months, if at all,” Harré says.

Aside from geo blocking issues, the Internet Party also wants to abolish the Internet disconnection sanction available under New Zealand’s “three-strikes” law, and strengthen the “safe harbor” provisions for Internet services to prevent abuse by copyright holders.

The full draft of the Internet Party’s copyright and open research policy is available here.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

At the same time, however, they also created a new problem. With a relatively cheap VPN subscription, people from all over the world can connect to the site via a U.S.-based IP-address and bypass its geographical restrictions.

In an effort to deal with these unauthorized users, Hulu has started to block visitors who access the site through an IP-address that’s linked to a VPN service. This blockade also applies to hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens.

Hulu’s blocklist was implemented this week and currently covers the IP-ranges of all major VPN services. People who try to access the site through one of these IPs are not allowed to view any content on the site, and receive the following notice instead.

“Based on your IP-address, we noticed that you are trying to access Hulu through an anonymous proxy tool. Hulu is not currently available outside the U.S. If you’re in the U.S. you’ll need to disable your anonymizer to access videos on Hulu,” the notice reads.

The sudden blockade hasn’t been announced publicly by Hulu, but it’s clear that the service wants to lock out all foreign users. The main reason for this is most likely to please TV networks and movie outlets.

Previously, entertainment industry sources in Australia complained bitterly that “VPN-pirates” were hurting their business, as tens of thousands of potential subscribers were using the U.S. version of Netflix.

However, the problem with Hulu’s blanket ban on VPN services is that U.S. citizens are forced to give up their privacy as well. They can still watch Hulu, but not securely. TorrentFreak has contacted several providers, who dealt with dozens of complaints on this issue yesterday.

VikingVPN was one of the first to notice the change, and TorGuard and Private Internet Access have been dealing with the fallout too. The latter is currently engaged in discussion with Hulu hoping to find a solution.

“Private Internet Access exists to protect the privacy of netizens everywhere. Many of our customers leave their Private Internet Access accounts enabled 24/7/365. It is unfortunate that Hulu is blocking VPN service IPs,” Andrew Lee, CEO of Private Internet Access told TF.

“We have an existing relationship with Hulu and are reaching out to them directly to see what we can do about fixing this issue,” Lee adds.

VikingVPN is disappointed with Hulu’s decision as well, and rightfully points out that the streaming service could at least implement SSL to protect the privacy of its visitors.

“We’re upset that our users would have to disconnect from our service in order to access Hulu. We encourage users to remain connected in order to guard their privacy, 24/7. Hulu could mitigate a small portion of this concern if they would at least implement SSL on their website,” VikingVPN’s Micah Greene tells TorrentFreak.

TorGuard informs us that not all of their shared IP-addresses have been blocked yet. When this happens, they plan to role out more dedicated IPs which are likely to remain undetected.

“In the event of wide-spread IP blocking a quick fix for the problem is to use a dedicated VPN IP. This ensures that no other user on the network has registered an account under that same IP address,” TorGuard’s CEO Ben Van Pelt informs TF.

“TorGuard has thousands of dedicated IPs on hand in our US locations and we’ve already seen an increase in purchases for this add-on today,” Van Pelt adds.

The above makes it clear that there may be ways to circumvent the Hulu blockade, so U.S. citizens can still keep their VPN connection alive while watching.

However, it’s clear that Hulu is taking a stand against foreign “pirates” who use their service without permission.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Five years on things are really improving, but the same cannot be said about its citizens’ access to international media products.

For reasons best known to Apple, Icelanders have no access to iTunes. In fact the company doesn’t directly sell iPhones to Iceland so people have to obtain them through resellers. If locals want access to content through Netflix and even Amazon, well, they can think again.

Of course, faced with this dearth of availability it comes as little surprise that there are plenty of services around that seek to solve the problem. Googling “VPN Iceland Netflix” produces dozens of results from international outfits but it is a new product from a local company that’s currently causing waves.

The product is the brainchild of Icelandic telecoms company Tal, who are now offering what they call their Lúxusnet package. Among other things it allows customers to access sites outside Iceland by exchanging a local IP address for an international one.

“We want an Internet that is open and accessible to all, no matter where in the world they are born or residing. We want things to be simple and easy to use so that you can do what you really want. Therefore, we have added a little luxury to your network,” the company explains.

While Icelanders will no doubt be pleased at the prospect of accessing content from services such as Netflix and Hulu, a local anti-piracy outfit has rather a different attitude.

Founded 20 years ago, the MPA-affiliated Association of Film Rights-Holders of Iceland (SMÁÍS) represents the interests of local and international movie companies. It says that the service being offered by Tal is illegal. Tal, on the other hand, think that they are offering a tool and how that tool is used is down to the user.

“The use of foreign content providers and websites is always the responsibility of the customer,” said Tal director Petreu Ingileifar Guðmundsdóttur in a comment.

According to the anti-piracy group, this attempt at shifting liability away from the ISP and onto the customer simply doesn’t wash.

“This argument does not hold, either morally or legally, in our opinion,” says SMÁÍS general manager Snæbjörn Steingrímsson. “In fact, we hear this exact same argument about torrent-sites.”

SMÁÍS insist that Tal’s product (and another similar one offered by Flix.is) are tools designed to circumvent technical measures (in this case geo-blocking mechanisms) put in place to protect copyright, which are illegal under local law.

“We are very surprised that a great company such as Tal is offering this sort of thing, but we will challenge them and Flix.is too,” Snæbjörn says.

According to local media SMÁÍS will try to get Tal to cooperate but in parallel preparations are being made to take the case to the police.

“This is like saying people can buy contraband goods legally as long as they come to this country legally,” Snæbjörn concludes. “There is no commercial or other economic activity in Iceland that could survive against such competition.”

It is of course interesting that SMÁÍS cites circumvention issues as the basis for its complaint but ends up talking about competition.

One of the anti piracy group’s most prominent members is a company called 365 Media, who just happen to be Iceland’s largest television, radio and publications giant. For a company that supplies movies to locals at premium prices, the prospect of competition from Netflix and Hulu at much more competitive U.S. rates will no doubt be proving less than attractive.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Fox stopped offering free access to its TV-shows the day after they air on television, and put in an 8-day delay before these appear on Hulu and Fox.com.

“The decision goes directly against the wishes of the public but Fox will take this disappointment as collateral damage in the hope that the delay will result in more live viewers and better deals with cable and satellite distributors,” we wrote in an article.

A good move business wise maybe but viewers weren’t all that happy and many decided to pirate the shows instead.

Our research showed that the number of U.S. downloads on BitTorrent more than doubled for both recent episodes of Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef.

Yesterday Fox responded to our findings, and they told HWR in a comment:

“The TorrentFreak blog post is a little over the top. The story indicates that we ‘took this drastic step in the hope of getting more people to watch shows live and thus make more revenue.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. Authenticating viewers is not about making sure they only watch live…in fact, quite the opposite—we support a ‘TV Everywhere’ proposition and are working with our distribution partners to benefit our businesses. It’s about receiving fair value so we can continue to produce this expensive and high quality programming. We are pursuing a strategy where the 90+ million households who pay to watch our programming via cable/satellite/telco will ultimately receive maximum benefit. They can watch live, via DVR, on VOD, online, or through one of the various tablet apps that allow in-home viewing. We are actively in negotiations with all cable/satellite/telco providers regarding authentication of their customers. We hope to announce several more agreements before the start of the new television season in mid-September.”

Oh really? We were totally wrong?

As we mentioned in or original article, we thought that Fox was making this move to increase live viewers and satellite /cable offerings. Fox clearly disputes the live angle, but the bottom line is that they expect to make more revenue by delaying the releases.

It’s all about making more money, and with more live viewers they do exactly that. A TV viewer is worth much more than a web viewer so we have to assume that Fox wont be disappointed if their decision leads to more live viewers.

The most annoying part is of course that they try to sell their decision as a good thing.

They claim to add value for paying (and authenticated) customers, but they add nothing at all. What they do is remove value for millions of regular viewers.

If that’s not backward thinking I honestly don’t know what is.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

When the plan was first announced last month we predicted that it could lead to a significant boost in online piracy of Fox shows, and this does indeed turn out to be the case.

Over the last week TorrentFreak tracked two Fox shows on BitTorrent to see if there was an upturn in the number of downloads compared to the previous weeks, and the results are as expected. For both Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef the download numbers have surged.

During the first 5 days, the number of downloads from the U.S. for the latest episode of Hell’s Kitchen increased by 114% compared to the previous 3 episodes. For MasterChef the upturn was even higher with 189% more downloads from the U.S. For MasterChef; the extra high demand may in part have been facilitated by the fact that it was the season finale.

Aside from BitTorrent, there are of course many other options for people to catch up with a missed episode. YouTube for example, from where tens of thousands of people streamed the latest Hell’s Kitchen episode.

Instead of Hulu or Fox, the pirates get the praise. On YouTube and BitTorrent sites many users thank the uploaders for making the shows available.

“You so rock and allowed me to keep my promise to my son. I promised if he cleaned for one hour he could watch Hell’s Kitchen with me. He was excited and then disappointed that we couldn’t watch it on Hulu or Fox.com,” WithurShield writes.

“Thanks a lot for uploading these, Hulu used to be my go-to but alas, they have failed me,” minniemica adds.

On the other hand, several users who went to Hulu expecting to see a fresh episode left comments berating Fox (although most target Hulu) for their decision not to make the episodes available for free.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I went to Hell’s Kitchen and Master Chef. Right in the middle of the series idiot at Hulu decided to through in the pay services. At least have the decency to wait till the end [sic],” one commenter writes on Hulu.

“What I don’t like is up until now I have been able to watch the episode of Hell’s Kitchen the day after it airs and all of a sudden they now want me to pay for it?” another commenter adds.

There is no doubt that the Hulu delay is not in the best interests of TV-viewers. Although it might be a good business decision in the short term, one has to doubt whether driving people to ‘pirated’ content is a wise choice. To many viewers it is clearly a step backward.

Instead of artificial restrictions the public demands flexibility when it comes to entertainment. They want to decide when and where they want to watch something, and right now video streaming sites, BitTorrent and even the old VCR do a better job at this than Fox.

“I’m going to go buy a DVR or dust off my VCR and I will be recording my tv shows from now on,” a commenter writes on Hulu.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.