Copyright Industry Continues Its Efforts To Ban VPNs

Last month Walled Culture wrote about an important case at the Court of Justice of the European Union, (CJEU), the EU’s top court, that could determine how VPNs can be used in that region. Clarification in this area is particularly important because VPNs are currently under attack in various ways. For example, last year, the Danish government published draft legislation that many believed would make it illegal to use a VPN to access geoblocked streaming content or bypass restrictions on illegal websites. In the wake of a firestorm of criticism, Denmark’s Minister of Culture assured people that VPNs would not be banned. However, even though references to VPNs were removed from the text, the provisions are so broadly drafted that VPNs may well be affected anyway. Companies too are taking aim at VPNs. Leading the charge are those in France, which have been targeting VPN providers for over a year now. As TorrentFreak reported last February:

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.

The VPN Trust Initiative (VTI) responded with a press release opposing what it called a “Misguided Legal Effort to Extend Website Blocking to VPNs”. It warned:

Such blocking can have sweeping consequences that might put the security and privacy of French citizens at risk.

Targeting VPNs opens the door to a dangerous censorship precedent, risking overreach into broader areas of content.

Indeed: if VPN blocks become an option, there will inevitably be more calls to use them for a wider range of material. The VTI also noted that some of its members are considering whether to abandon the French market completely. That could mean people start using less reliable VPN providers, some of which have dubious records when it comes to security and privacy. The incentive for VPNs to pull out of France is increasing. In August last year the Paris Judicial Court ordered top VPN service providers to block more sports streaming domains, and at the beginning of this year, yet more blocking orders were issued to VPNs operating in France. To its credit, one of the VPN providers affected, ProtonVPN, fought back. As reported here by TorrentFreak, the company tried multiple angles:

The VPN provider raised jurisdictional questions and also requested to see evidence that Canal+ owned all the rights at play. However, these concerns didn’t convince the court.

The same applies to Proton’s net neutrality defense, which argued that Article 333-10 of the French sports code, which is at the basis of all blocking orders, violates EU Open Internet Regulation. This defense was too vague, the court concluded, noting that Proton cited the regulation without specifying which provisions were actually breached.

ProtonVPN also argued that forcing a Swiss company to block sites for the French market is a restriction of cross-border trade in services, and that in any case, the blocking measures were “technically unrealizable, costly, and unnecessarily complex.” Despite this valiant defense, the court was unimpressed. At least ProtonVPN was allowed to contest the French court’s ruling. In a similar case in Spain, no such option was given. According to TorrentFreak:

The court orders were issued inaudita parte, which is Latin for “without hearing the other side.” Citing urgency, the Córdoba court did not give NordVPN and ProtonVPN the opportunity to contest the measures before they were granted.

Without a defense, the court reportedly concluded that both NordVPN and ProtonVPN actively advertise their ability to bypass geo-restrictions, citing match schedules in their marketing materials. The VPNs are therefore seen as active participants in the piracy chain rather than passive conduits, according to local media reports.

That’s pretty shocking, and shows once more how biased in favor of the copyright industry the law has become in some jurisdictions: other parties aren’t even allowed to present a defense. It’s a further reason why a definitive ruling from the CJEU on the right of people to use VPNs how they wish is so important.

Alongside these recent court cases, there is also another imminent attack on the use of VPNs, albeit in a slight different way. The UK government has announced wide-ranging plans that aim to “keep children safe online”. One of the ideas the government is proposing is “to age restrict or limit children’s VPN use where it undermines safety protections and changing the age of digital consent.” Although this is presented as a child protection measure, the effects will be much wider. The only way to bring in age restrictions for children is if all adult users of VPNs verify their own age. This inevitably leads to the creation of huge new online databases of personal information that are vulnerable to attack. As a side effect, the UK government’s misguided plans will also bolster the growing attempts by the copyright industry to demonize VPNs – a core element of the Internet’s plumbing – as unnecessary tools that are only used to break the law.

Follow me @glynmoody on Mastodon and on Bluesky. Originally published on WalledCulture.