France Keeps Breaking the Internet to Stop Piracy, Even Though It’s Not Working
Techdirt argues that France is expanding anti piracy enforcement in ways that damage internet infrastructure without meaningfully stopping piracy. The article focuses on a Paris Court of Appeal ruling that upheld DNS blocking orders requiring Google, Cloudflare and Cisco to block pirate sites through their public DNS resolvers.
The case was brought by Canal+ under Article L. 333 10 of the French Sport Code, which lets rightsholders seek “proportionate measures” from online entities that can help block illegal sports streams. The court rejected arguments that DNS resolvers are neutral, passive tools and said their neutrality does not matter if they can technically help block access.
Google argued that third party DNS blocking is ineffective because users can switch to VPNs or other resolvers. The court rejected that too, saying a measure can still be valid even if it can be bypassed. Techdirt warns that this logic could extend blocking duties to VPNs, browsers, operating systems, CDNs, cloud providers and other internet infrastructure.
The article highlights collateral damage from this approach. Cisco reportedly pulled OpenDNS out of France rather than comply with the original order, meaning lawful French users lost access to the service. Techdirt says ordinary users who rely on third party DNS for privacy, speed and reliability are harmed, while determined pirates can still route around blocks.
The piece concludes that France is repeating the same failed strategy: forcing more intermediaries to police piracy, breaking more layers of the internet, and still failing to solve the underlying problem. Techdirt argues that convenient, fairly priced legal access is more effective than increasingly aggressive blocking regimes.
