The Government has yet to spell out whether some internet TV viewing will face sanctions under the TPPA.

Confusion surrounds the future legality of people picking the locks on overseas online television services, despite an attempt by Trade Minister Tim Groser to clarify the situation late on Friday.

Internet users and Sky Television want to know if it will become a criminal offence to get around blocks on overseas online television services, such as the United States version of Netflix.

Green Party co-leader James Shaw called for answers from the Government following the release of more detail on the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement on Thursday.

Tens of thousands of New Zealanders are believed to watch the US version of Netflix by using services that trick Netflix into thinking they are located in the US.

Documents released by Groser said the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement (TPPA) would require New Zealand to provide stronger protection for technological protection measures (TPMs).

TPMs are a general term used to describe "digital locks" that prevent copyright works being accessed by people who don't have the rights holders' consent.

The main new requirement was for "civil and criminal remedies" against people breaking TPMs, according to an explanatory paper issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Sky Television spokeswoman Kirsty Way said it was not sure whether that meant criminal penalties for people who used Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to disguise their location and access online services that were supposed to be "geo-blocked" in New Zealand, such as the US version of Netflix.

"It is a bit premature for us to comment but we may down the track when it is a bit clearer and more information has been released.

"We have made it quite clear we are against some of these content access services that haven't paid for rights in New Zealand. We are not making a statement against all VPNs," she said.

Shaw said the Government needed to explain whether the TPPA "would criminalise people who used VPNs" saying the informaiton it had released so far was not clear.

That was characteristic of the whole TPPA, he said. "New Zealanders have the right to know whether the thousands of New Zealanders who use VPNs legitimately every day are going to become criminals, or not."

Groser said New Zealand had negotiated the right to make "exceptions" under the TPM clause for activities that were currently "legitimate" in New Zealand. The Government intended to use that power to continue to allow people to break regional locks on DVDs that they bought overseas, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.

But Groser did not clarify whether the criminal and civil remedies would apply to New Zealanders who used VPNs to circumvent geo-blocks on overseas online television services.

The Government would determine what "exceptions" it allowed during the implementation of the new laws, he said in a statement issued late on Friday.

"The Government intends to provide exceptions for situations where use of a copyright work either does not infringe copyright in the first place, or is otherwise permitted because there is a copyright exception under New Zealand law. The question of whether copyright has been breached will depend on the individual circumstances of each case," he said.

Legal experts have said it is a grey area whether the use of anti-geo-blocking services to access overseas TV services currently breached civil law.

Sources said the answer to that question could determine whether the Government might be empowered to make an exemption relating to VPNs, or whether their use to access overseas online television services would now need to become a criminal offence.

Sky TV has been encouraging World Rugby to shut down an online service, ViewTVabroad.com, that has been providing cheap access to Rugby World Cup matches by re-streaming internationally live coverage that is supposed to be restricted to ITV viewers in Britain.

But World Rugby appears to have so far only succeeded in getting ViewTVabroad to remove the Rugby World Cup's official logo from its website and to replace that with a picture of a rugby ball.

Netflix said on Thursday that it would increase the price of its main US streaming television service by a dollar to US$9.99 a month (NZ$16.65). Its New Zealand service, which carries different programming which is all properly licensed for distribution in New Zealand, is priced at $9.99 in standard definition, or from $12.99 in HD.

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