Rightsholders Target VPN Providers in French Court to Block Piracy

In their ongoing battle against online sports piracy, French rightsholders are now seeking to extend site-blocking measures to VPN providers. Canal+ and the football league LFP have requested court orders to compel NordVPN, ExpressVPN, ProtonVPN, and others to block access to pirate sites and services. The move follows similar orders obtained last year against DNS resolvers.

In recent years, French rightsholders have expanded their domestic site blocking efforts through the courts.

Traditional blocking measures have been in place for years. They require ISPs to block subscribers’ access to popular pirate sites. The aim is to deter piracy by making sites more difficult to find, but these measures are only partially effective.

In response to blocking orders, many ‘pirates’ resort to workarounds; third-party DNS resolvers, for example, or VPNs that enable access websites from locations immune to ISP-based blocking.

These workarounds are a source of frustration for copyright holders, including Canal+ and French football league LFP. These companies own the rights to popular sports content including the Premier League, the Champions League, Ligue 1, and the Rugby Top 14.

Blockades Expand to DNS Resolvers

To address blocking workarounds, the rightsholders took the matter to court, requesting DNS resolvers including Google, Cloudflare, Cisco, and Quad9 to block dozens of pirate sites.

In a landmark judgment last year, the Paris Judicial Court granted its first DNS blocking order in favor of Canal+. This was followed by several others, gradually expanding the blocking measures and placing pressure on circumvention options.

The court orders were all issued under Article L.333-10 of the French Sports Code and mark a broadening of Canal+’s legal strategy. Despite fierce criticism from major tech companies, French rightsholders are not holding back. On the contrary, they have already moved on to the next set of targets.

New Target: VPN Providers

To maintain and increase their momentum, Canal+ and LFP recently summoned several of the largest VPN providers to court.

The legal paperwork is not available to the public but Marc Rees, a journalist at l’Informé, reports that NordVPN, Surfshark, ProtonVPN, ExpressVPN and Cyberghost are being targeted by Canal+ and LFP in two seperate cases.

VPN services typically hide users’ traffic from their Internet providers, rendering any blocking efforts useless. As a result, rightsholders want these VPN companies to comply with the blocking measures as well.

Similar to the DNS resolver cases, the legal paperwork cites Article 333-10 of the French Sports Code. This allows rightsholders to demand “all proportionate measures” against entities that are “likely to contribute to remedying” copyright infringement.

Fortifying Existing Blockades

The two cases against VPN providers are aimed at denying access to sports streaming platforms. Canal+ lists IPTV services including boxtv60.com and fmytv.com, and streaming sites such as Ishunter.net, Antenasports.ru, and Rojadirectahdenvivo.com. Several of these targets have already been blocked through other court orders.

The LFP complaint identifies dozens of additional targets such as Popcorn IPTV, Net IPTV, Facto IPTV, Movie Live IPTV, DINO TV, and WhishIPTV.

TorrentFreak reached out to several of the mentioned VPN providers who did not immediately respond to our request for comment. LFP confirmed the legal action, telling l’Informé that they are taking action against VPNs to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to protect their rights.

Hearings for both cases are scheduled for next month, as shown below, so it will likely take a while before an eventual ruling some in.


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