“PayPal cuts off service to ‘Unblock-Us’ amid Netflix crackdown on VPN providers” by Andrew Russell, Global News
Global News quotes Ariel Thomas in an article on PayPal cracking down on VPN providers and cutting service to ‘Unblock-Us’, an unblocking company.
Ariel Thomas, a copyright lawyer with the firm Fasken Martineau, says the Canadian Copyright Act makes it illegal for a company to offer services primarily to circumvent technologies that control access to copyrighted works or “hopping the fence.”
“The law recognizes there are legitimate purposes behind [VPNs],” Thomas told Global News. “There is no blanket prohibition on providing VPN services or using them, but in copyright law there is a prohibition on what we call ‘circumventing technological protection measures’ or hopping the fence.”
“Individuals aren’t allowed to hop the fence, and also people aren’t allowed to provide services to others to enable them to hop the fence if those services are provided primarily for that purpose.”
Ariel Thomas, a copyright lawyer with the firm Fasken Martineau, says the Canadian Copyright Act makes it illegal for a company to offer services primarily to circumvent technologies that control access to copyrighted works or “hopping the fence.”
“The law recognizes there are legitimate purposes behind [VPNs],” Thomas told Global News. “There is no blanket prohibition on providing VPN services or using them, but in copyright law there is a prohibition on what we call ‘circumventing technological protection measures’ or hopping the fence.”
“Individuals aren’t allowed to hop the fence, and also people aren’t allowed to provide services to others to enable them to hop the fence if those services are provided primarily for that purpose.”