Philosophy In Action
All the ideas and discussions
Canada has different copyright and broadcasting laws than the US, and as a result we have vastly different online viewing options. For example, Hulu and Amazon Prime are not accessible in Canada, and instead of watching Sons of Anarchy on Netflix we're stuck with reruns of The X Files and News Radio. (That's a bit of an exaggeration!) Many people easily get around these restrictions by faking a US IP address on one or more of their devices. I can't see how they are violating any rights by doing so, since they still have to pay subscription fees for the American services. Hence, it's not the equivalent of stealing cable. As far as I can tell it's not even illegal to fake your IP address, so the only consequence of being found out might be the service provider canceling your contract. Is this an example of a time when it would be moral to be dishonest -- since you are faking reality to gain a value? Should you still not do it simply on principle?