Copyright holders see pirate site blocking as an effective and proportional tool to combat widespread online piracy.
Over the years, courts and lawmakers in dozens of countries have agreed, resulting in a patchwork of blocking regimes around the globe.
Initially, these efforts focused on residential ISPs as the key intermediaries. While these companies were not blamed directly, they were the go-to parties to implement blocking. That proved insufficient, however.
More recently, DNS resolvers have been targeted with blocking orders. Since services such as Cloudflare, Google and OpenDNS, can be used to bypass ISP blocking efforts, courts in Germany and France have determined that DNS resolvers should take responsibility too.
VPN Blocking
DNS resolvers are also key players in the U.S. site-blocking bill, suggesting that more countries may seek to expand their blocking powers. Over in France, rightsholders are already gearing up for the next step, by going after VPN providers.
Earlier this month, sports rightsholders Canal+ and LFP requested blocking injunctions that would require popular VPNs to start blocking pirate sites and services. The full requests are not public, but the details available show that Cyberghost, ExpressVPN, NordVPN, ProtonVPN, and Surfshark are listed as respondents.
The aim is to prevent circumvention of existing blocking measures put in place to reduce widespread copyright infringement. However, VPN providers believe that they play no role in this matter. They serve legitimate privacy and security purposes and actively distance themselves from piracy.
Despite being neutral intermediaries, services can be ordered to block. Internet providers and DNS resolvers are not piracy tools either, but the French court compelled these companies to block piracy nonetheless.
Exit France?
The blocking request has yet to be approved and several of the targeted VPN providers have reserved detailed commentary, for now. That said, the VPN Trust Initiative (VTI), which includes ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Surfshark as members, has been vocal in its opposition.
VTI is part of the i2Coalition and while it doesn’t speak directly for any of the members, the coalition’s Executive Director Christian Dawson has been in regular discussions with VPN providers. From this, it became clear that VPN providers face difficult decisions.
If VPN providers are ordered to block pirate sites, some are considering whether to follow in the footsteps of Cisco, which discontinued its OpenDNS service in the country, to avoid meddling with its DNS resolver.
Speaking with TorrentFreak, VTI’s Dawson says that VPNs have previously left markets like India and Pakistan in response to restrictive requirements. This typically happens when privacy or security principles are at risk, or if the technical implementation of blocking measures is infeasible.
VTI does not rule out that some members may choose to exit France for similar reasons, if required to comply with blocking measures.
“We’ve seen this before in markets like India and Pakistan, where regulatory requirements forced some VPN services to withdraw rather than compromise on encryption standards or log-keeping policies,” Dawson says.
“France’s potential move to force VPN providers to block content could put companies in a similar position — where they either comply with measures that contradict their purpose or leave the market altogether.”
Dangerous Precedent
VTI notes that the French request isn’t the first time that VPN services have faced external interference. China, Russia, and Iran, have imposed VPN regulations in the past for varying reasons.
“This case in France is part of a broader global trend of regulatory overreach, where governments attempt to control encrypted services under the guise of content regulation. We’ve already seen how China, Russia, Myanmar, and Iran have imposed VPN restrictions as part of broader censorship efforts.”
In Malaysia, South Korea, and Australia, IP-filtering and blocking efforts involving VPNs have also resulted in overblocking, Dawson notes. This is a slippery slope and normalizing these measures opens the door to more mistakes and further restrictions on privacy and security tools.
Whether VPN providers will leave France or not, potential blocking restrictions will be noticed. One prime concern of the VPN providers is that users will flock from ‘blocked’ to ‘unrestricted’ VPNs; those could possibly include insecure VPNs.
Next Steps
Currently, there are no blocking requirements as the injunction request has yet to be approved. A hearing scheduled for next month will give both rightsholders and the VPN companies a chance to have their say.
Even if the injunction is granted, the legal battle will be far from over. ProtonVPN previously said that it is prepared to take this case all the way to Europe’s highest court, and it will likely find other VPNs on its side.
VTI also believes that there are better solutions than outright blocking, which potentially disrupts the open Internet. That includes tacking pirate sites and services at the source, instead of indirectly.
“The best path forward is for policymakers to focus on targeted enforcement measures that don’t undermine Internet security or create a precedent for global Internet fragmentation. “As seen in other cases, blanket blocking measures do not effectively combat piracy but instead create far-reaching consequences that disrupt the open Internet,” Dawson concludes.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
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