Geoblocking and Evasion of Geoblocking – Technical Standards and the Law

Geoblocking and Global Video Culture (Ramon Lobato & James Meese eds.,2016, Forthcoming)

10 Pages Posted: 31 Aug 2015

See all articles by Marketa Trimble

Marketa Trimble

University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law

Date Written: August 25, 2015

Abstract

The relationship between geoblocking and legal compliance has undergone significant development in recent years. Legislators, courts, and agencies previously did not view geoblocking as a reliable method of achieving compliance with territorial limitations on rights and responsibilities. They assumed that the internet was inherently borderless and geoblocking was invariably unreliable, and they adopted laws, rendered judgments, and issued decisions with the conviction that the global, territorially-unrestricted effects of their actions were inevitable. Recently, however, legislators, courts, and agencies have begun to consider geoblocking as a viable tool for delineating the effects of their laws, judgments, and decisions, and for territorially limiting actions on the internet in general.

The consideration by legislators, courts, and agencies of geoblocking as a means to achieve compliance with territorial limitations set by law is one part of the development of the relationship between geoblocking and legal compliance. This chapter outlines the three stages through which this development will proceed. In the first stage, geoblocking will be accepted as a tool of regulation and enforcement. While acceptance has already occurred in some countries in some contexts, this acceptance is certainly not yet general or widespread. In the second stage, minimum standards for geoblocking will be promulgated because the use of geoblocking for purposes of legal compliance necessarily calls for minimum technological standards that geoblocking tools must meet in order to create virtual borders sufficiently precise and impermeable to satisfy the law. In the third stage, circumvention of geoblocking and the tools that facilitate circumvention will be targeted by countries’ regulation. The three stages will likely begin at different times in different countries, industries, and contexts, but will eventually overlap and thereafter develop concurrently.

Keywords: geoblocking, geolocation, territoriality, compliance, border, cross-border, transnational, evasion, circumvention, cybertravel, regulation, enforcement, gaming, gambling, online, Spanski, Telewizja Polska, GlobalMode, Commission, European Union, Digital Europe, legal

Suggested Citation

Trimble, Marketa, Geoblocking and Evasion of Geoblocking – Technical Standards and the Law (August 25, 2015). Geoblocking and Global Video Culture (Ramon Lobato & James Meese eds.,2016, Forthcoming), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2650923

Marketa Trimble (Contact Author)

University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law ( email )

4505 South Maryland Parkway
Box 451003
Las Vegas, NV 89154
United States

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