Censorship and Copyright

For many of us it may simply be known as an annoyance. We head over to YouTube, following a link that appeared interesting when suddenly we get that mocking chagrined smiley staring at us accompanying the message "Sorry this video has not been made available in your region". It is irritating to us when it is just a music video we were dying to view. However it isn't always something so trivial. This can be because of two main issues, copyright and geographical restrictions.
In the case of copyright the poster of the video must have the rights to the video or the owner can report them to YouTube and the video can be removed or blocked. The owner has the rights to the distribution of their own property. They also control the location restrictions on their videos. YouTube and other video hosts probably use the common Geo-IP look up to track the country that their users are in through the network address of the server of the users.
In the case of geographical restrictions the content could be damaging or controversial in certain countries. Luckily there are now ways to get around this censorship. You can now add on an IP blocker which hides your location, or download additions to your web browser which alter your location to one where the video is allowed such as this one for Firefox taken from http://brokensecrets.com/2010/09/27/how-to-watch-blocked-internet-videos/


Install this Firefox plugin: http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/967 (requires Firefox browser)
In Firefox, Go to “tools” > “modify headers”
From the drop down box on the left select add
Then enter: “X-Forwarded-For” in the first input box without the quotation marks
Enter one of the following IP addresses in the second input box without the quotation marks (choose the country where the content is accessible from)
USA – 12.13.14.15
Canada – 207.245.252.27
UK – 193.35.131.194
Leave the last input box empty, save the filter, and enable it (should look like this: http://imgur.com/Feb4.png )
Click the “Configuration” button on the bottom right then proceed to check the “always on” button.
Close the Modify Headers box, restart the Firefox browser and visit the intended website.

Methods such as this one can be used to access information which would have been hidden by those in authority otherwise. Anti-government and other such controversial information can be viewed and the ordinary citizen can now have the two sides to a story. This leads to a less biased view and a more educated, media literate public.