This article pursues the assumption that cultural policy has been disallowed regulation of cultural rights on the Internet. Instead, early initiatives on Intellectual Property Rights have prescribed cultural policy viewpoints. Restrictions of cultural rights can be connected to gray areas of ethics and markets. The first aim of the article is to articulate concepts useful for discussing gray phenomenon given restrictions of cultural rights on the Internet. The second aim is to critically analyze the historical development of ‘copygray’ areas. These can also be positioned within the context of an evolving surveillance society. The rights of the state and of corporations to large-scale quantities of personal information have been generously enlarged through lack of restrictions relating to social media. Thus, while cultural rights become restricted, citizens are simultaneously deprived of rights to control personal information. Both of these developments can be situated within legal and ethical gray areas.