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I know some websites that offer some shows and videos legally and free. The only disadvantage is that they don't offer it in my area or region.

According to U.S. law, is it okay or legal to use VPN to watch those movies? I will not financially affect them because if they need money, they will simply put a payment gateway on their website. Some websites use geo-restriction which restrict service to these websites based on location, is it legal to use a VPN on sites with geo-restrictions.

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  • You might be violating the site's terms of use, but I'd be more worried about your country's laws depending on where you are. It may be region restricted because the content is illegal in your country. Mar 18, 2019 at 11:52
  • @IllusiveBrian As I mentioned in the question, I'd like to learn the US law. In my country, everything is legal lol :D :D I'm in the third world :D Mar 18, 2019 at 14:26
  • 2 days passed an still no answer! Mar 20, 2019 at 19:41
  • If you don't understand something, why would you not try to find out, before trying to argue that you won't affect them by doing something pretty clearly affecting them.
    – user4657
    Mar 22, 2019 at 21:49

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If you are in the US it is not a crime to access regionally restricted content. It is a crime in some countries such as Belarus and North Korea. It is probably a violation of the TOS (for Netflix e.g.) in the US, meaning that you could be sued by Netflix for copyright violation. Their content may be licensed in a specific way so that for instance X can only be viewed in Japan -- they do not have the copyright owners' permission to distribute everywhere. Such restrictions are not valid within the EU. So, it could lead to civil action.

There are also criminal laws against "unauthorized access" of a computer (server), but courts in the US have not found violations of a TOS to constitute unauthorized access in the criminal sense. It may not even be a violation of the TOS, and it would depend on the wording of their access-restriction section of the TOS.

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