Cracks are emerging in internet providers' response to a legal threat from television companies over the access some are providing to overseas internet television services.
CallPlus is stalling over how it will respond to the threat of legal action from the country's top television firms over a service called Global Mode while another smaller internet provider, Unlimited Internet, has backed down and withdrawn its support for the service.

CallPlus, which owns the Slingshot, Orcon and Flip internet brands, is the largest of a group of internet providers offering Global Mode.
The service, developed by Auckland company Bypass Network Services (BPN), helps internet users subscribe to online services that are supposed to be blocked in New Zealand for copyright reasons, such as the United States version of internet television service Netflix.

Law firm Buddle Findlay, acting on behalf of Sky Television, Television New Zealand, MediaWorks and Spark subsidiary Lightbox, wrote to Slingshot, Orcon, BNS and some smaller internet providers including Unlimited Internet on Thursday.

The letter demanded they cease offering Global Mode by 5pm on April 15 or face immediate legal action.
The television companies claimed Global Mode "materially undermined" the value of New Zealand rights to programmes that they had legitimately bought and that their rights were being "knowingly and illegally impinged".

Unlimited Internet chief executive Ben Simpson said it had decided to stop offering Global Mode after receiving the legal threat.
It had been advised by lawyers that they would require a six-figure bond to defend any action and he was unwilling to fund what would be a "test case", he said.

Read the full Article by TOM PULLAR-STRECKER on Stuff.co.nz