Bypass proxy lock - is it legal?
You could watch American TV series for free on the Internet - if there weren't proxy blocks. Is it legal to bypass them? We'll tell you if you can watch series on Fox.com, Hulu.com and Co. with a clear conscience.
- US broadcasters like FOX only have video rights for the American market. That is why proxy blocks block Internet users from other countries from accessing the film.
- If you try to access one of the clips, your German IP address will be recognized and access denied.
- You can circumvent the block by first controlling an American server and then surfing further under its American IP address and selecting the corresponding video.
- This works with numerous anonymization programs - for example the free tools "Tor" and "ProxMate".
Streaming is legal
- While streaming series and videos is considered legal by many lawyers, downloading such videos is illegal.
- The right to a private copy no longer applies when downloading - this is also the opinion of media lawyer Christian Solmecke. When streaming, the video is automatically deleted from the temporary folder, but of course not when downloading.
- But is it also possible to bypass proxy locks?
Bypass proxy lock - is it legal?
- In the Copyright Act (UrhG) there is Article 95a "Protection of technical measures". In the first section it says:
- "Effective technical measures to protect a [...] protected work may not be avoided".
- However, the prevailing opinion among lawyers is that the protection of a proxy lock is not effective: after all, the lock can be easily handled with various tools.
- According to the current state of knowledge, proxy blocks can be legally circumvented.
- However, there may be a violation of the general terms and conditions (GTC) of an American website. They always say that you must be on American territory.
- Consequences from the breach of the terms and conditions are not expected. In the worst case, the website operator could block your IP address. But this is indistinguishable from that of real American users.
We present alternative video platforms that are definitely legal here.