Accessing your favourite TV shows and films online in Australia is growing ever more complex. Where once there was a handful of streaming services offering a smorgasbord of entertainment from a variety of studios, these companies now each provide their own subscription services.
We’re also seeing a major siloing of content by platform and by region, with some entertainment found on one streaming platform in one region but on another platform elsewhere. Companies are increasingly region-locking programs, with complex rights agreements so lucrative that it’s big news when certain shows arrive on particular platforms.
Access remains a key issue in Australia, with notable shows like Doctor Who being unavailable locally, while being freely available in some parts of the world.
This is where many internet users have turned to Virtual Private Network services to help. But before you use these programs, it’s best to understand the legality and ethics of using them, what they offer, and the inherent risks.
What to know about VPNs in Australia – quick links
What is a VPN?
A Virtual Private Network – such as those offered by NordVPN, Surfshark, and ExpressVPN – is a program that can mask the IP address of your internet connection and ‘trick’ certain websites and platforms into locating it in other regions. These programs will essentially scramble your signal and provide a fake identity that allows you to remain private online.
When using these programs, you can select a new location for your now-scrambled connection, allowing websites to recognise you as being in the UK or US, where access to content may be easier.
Are VPNs legal in Australia?
The first thing to know is that technically, the use of VPNs in Australia is legal. That’s not the case everywhere around the world, as they are illegal and restricted in certain countries where internet monitoring is a concern.
Where the subject gets murkier is what you use VPNs for. The generally understood and accepted reason for using a VPN is privacy and security while browsing online – ensuring outside threats don’t have access to your data and location.
When you use a VPN to access certain entertainment overseas, there is a bigger question about legality. In most cases, companies will have rights agreements that restrict viewing of certain programs only to that region.
In these cases, using a VPN to access shows and films might be considered a violation of copyright law, as well as terms of use for platforms and the VPN service.
VPNs, streaming and copyright law
As noted by The Conversation, there is a clause in the copyright act that prohibits circumvention using ‘Technological Protection Measures’.
Per a 2024 update by the Australian Copyright Council, an organisation devoted to promoting understanding of copyright law, getting around geoblocking is technically prohibited under Australian law as it relates to these existing TPMs.
TPMs control access to copyrighted materials, and attempt to ensure that copyright owners can protect access to their works. TPMs must be used in connection with ‘the exercise of copyright’ – as in, they must relate to one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner, such as controlling reproduction or communication to the public.
The Australian Copyright Council states that region-locking for DVDs, for example, is not a TPM and Australians are ‘allowed to circumvent any region coding so you can watch [a] DVD in Australia’.
This clarifies that only some geoblocks are actual legally-regulated TPMs.
‘Some geoblocks are TPMs, but some are not. For example, a music streaming website might prevent people in Australia from listening to songs it hasn’t licensed for streaming in Australia,’ states the Australian Copyright Council on its website. ‘The technical way the website imposes this restriction is likely to be a TPM because it restricts the streaming of the music (which is a communication to the public – a right of the copyright owner).’
Geoblocks that prevent ‘wholesale access to a website by blocking IP addresses or prevent purchasing material by only accepting credit cards from certain countries’ are unlikely to be considered a TPM under the Copyright Act, as the geoblock is ‘either not preventing access to identified material or not connected to the exercise of an exclusive right of the copyright owner’.
That changes when copyrighted materials are involved, however.
The Australian Copyright Council has outlined that using a VPN to streaming material from an overseas website does likely infringe copyright, as ‘streaming involves the copyright owner’s exclusive right of communication to the public’ and it’s ‘likely to be in breach of the service provider’s terms of service’.
Essentially, using anti-geoblocking technology like VPNs to access a platform like BBC iPlayer, which may have free access to an array of programs not available in Australia, is not technically illegal – but streaming copyrighted material likely is.
At present, regulation is largely focused on the actual service providers and platforms, and how they self-regulate access. What’s worth noting, as The Conversation points out, is that circumvention of geoblocking is not typically criminalised individually, despite its technical illegality. But – and it’s a notable but – there remain risks to accessing copyrighted content through VPNs in Australia, no matter how tempting it is.
Should you wish to access geoblocked content, there are options – but it’s best to understand exactly what a VPN does, and their correct use, before using them to access copyrighted entertainment from overseas regions.
