People seem to be thinking you can compare the idea of parallel importing to broadcasting rights. It's really not the same.

Lets put it this way by looking at it in reverse.  TVNZ was able to make Go Girls because it was a to offset the cost by selling it to multiple regions and networks.  Love or hate it the law means broadcasting rights are the right to show that in a particular country. Movies make most of their money in threatres...tv shows make most of their money by actually being broadcast on tv

The greedy corporates are just trying to enforce their right to be the only "broadcaster" in that region.
Blame law (and business models) written for VHF tv.

Aredwood:

davidrg:

Anyway, even if using American Netflix is legally equivalent to bittorrenting everything I'd say it is at least morally different. After all you are at least trying to pay for the content - its just in a way that the copyright holder doesn't want to be paid 

I can't see how it could be any better from a moral perspective. Paying money to do something that is illegal is no better than doing something that doesn't cost money but is still illegal. Is paying money for access to a private torrent tracker any better morally than using a free one? Of course not.

By subscribing to a legal service like NetFlix rather than torrenting my content, the content creators are getting paid. They may not be getting paid at the rate they normally would (due to fluctuating costs of license agreements around the world), but they are still getting paid. That is why I personally have no moral issue with parallel importing content, yet I am morally opposed to torrenting it.

NonprayingMantis: they actually aren't. Netflix licences its content on a flat fee per region, so you subscribing to usa netflix gives the content creators nothing extra. It's just pure profit for netflix.

But surely, the studios have a business model where the number of subscribers to a streaming service has an influence on the licencing cost to that service?  Otherwise, it would be impossible to start up a service - if the studios assumed you'd eventually have a subscriber base of say 40 million in the US, and charged you accordingly.  I would have thought that the charges are based on an original estimate of audience, which is then periodically audited and updated.  I find it very hard to believe that streaming services pay a flat, fixed for years, regional rate for content regardless of whether they have 10k or 10M users.  So in this way, by subscribing to US netflix a NZ user is contributing to the studio income in exactly the same way as a new US user

NonprayingMantis:

dclegg:

By subscribing to a legal service like NetFlix rather than torrenting my content, the content creators are getting paid. They may not be getting paid at the rate they normally would (due to fluctuating costs of license agreements around the world), but they are still getting paid. That is why I personally have no moral issue with parallel importing content, yet I am morally opposed to torrenting it.

they actually aren't. Netflix licences its content on a flat fee per region, so you subscribing to usa netflix gives the content creators nothing extra. It's just pure profit for netflix.

By being a paying Netflix customer (regardless of region), I'm helping Netflix to pay the the content creators (or help to bankroll their own content). If I torrent, I'm not paying anyone. This is why I have no moral qualms about parallel importing content, but I do have them about torrenting it.

A possible solution here is for content creators to abandon this flat fee, and instead charge Netflix on a per-user basis.

Slingshot should send out a release saying that even if they lose, here are some other great geo unblocking services that people can use to keep getting access to content that spark and sky would otherwise prevent them from getting, and put links to unotelly and unblockus etc. Just for more lols against the grumpy old time broadcasters.

I think the best summary of this outrageous move is by Jonathan Mosen (a.k.a. jmosen on Geekzone) on his blog:

"New Zealand's lack of accessibility a good reason to beat geo-blocking"

While looking at this from the accessibility side, the piece also gives good insight into the behind-the-scenes interests.

freitasm: I think the best summary of this outrageous move is by Jonathan Mosen (a.k.a. jmosen on Geekzone) on his blog:

"New Zealand's lack of accessibility a good reason to beat geo-blocking"

While looking at this from the accessibility side, the piece also gives good insight into the behind-the-scenes interests.

Outstanding commentary. Everyone should read it. The media companies behind this action should hang their heads in shame. Apart from the aspects of Internet freedom and the rights of New Zealanders to seek content wherever they like, the issues affecting the blind were something I never realised and had never thought about before. This adds a whole extra dimension to this despicable action. These media companies, especially $ky, owe this country a huge apology. Instead of demanding protection for their undeserved profits, they ought to be begging mercy for their despicable behaviour. I have already stopped watching TV1, 2 and 3, just because they are really uninteresting and I am sick of their commercials. Now I will make a renewed effort to wean my household off $ky. They don't deserve anyone's patronage.