Week in Review: May 4, 2016

Australia: Government Commission Criticizes Geo-Blocking

On April 29, 2016, the Australian Productivity Commission released a draft report that encouraged the government to avoid “any international agreements that would prevent or ban consumers from circumventing geo-blocking technology." The chief executive of Internet Australia, Laurie Patton, applauded the draft and its recommendations; he remarked, “We have consistently argued that geoblocking is fundamentally wrong and that it has resulted in unfair price-gouging of Australian consumers for decades.” For the past few years, Netflix has worked to limit customers outside the United States from accessing United States-only content by using virtual private networks (VPNs); it has tried to develop tools to tell when customers are accessing geo-restricted content. The issue of online copyright infringement has been on the radar of Australian researchers for a long time; in 2015, an Australian survey found that “people would likely stop infringing if legal content was: cheaper (39 per cent), more available (38 per cent), and had the same release date as other countries (36 per cent). 43 per cent of internet users stated that they were not confident of what is legal online content." Karen Chester, a commissioner with the Australian Productivity Commission discussed the policy implications of the report: "Unless you've got a teenager that can help you get around the geoblocking, some people will be able to access and others won't.  Those that won't will just breach copyright, do what we're all doing and get around the geoblock and access the US Netflix or the Canadian Netflix. Making copyright material more accessible and more competitively priced online, and not geoblocking, is the best antidote to copyright infringement." Netflix, at the time of writing, has not commented publicly on the Australian report.

Brazil: WhatsApp Shut Down and Then Reinstated Shortly Thereafter

Brazilian Judge Marcel Montalvao ordered local phone carriers to refuse Brazilian users access to WhatsApp for 72 hours; the court’s initial statement regarding his ruling is now inaccessible. No record of the statement can be found using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Judge Montalvao allegedly sought to punish WhatsApp for failing to turn over data in an ongoing criminal investigation. Shortly after his ruling, another judge intervened and reversed his colleague’s ruling. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckberg got involved in the discussion; his company