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'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling
- jcarrano 2mo agoYou could jump on a train from NL and be in Belgium in 15 minutes, get a "bootleg" physical copy of the diary and head back to NL. No one is suing for that.
- SahAssar 2mo agoIn Baarle-Nassau you can walk a few hundred meters and cross the border multiple times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Nassau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Nassau. Or even walk within a house and cross the border.
- sebastiennight 2mo agoFor those who (like me) missed the essential key word in the OP's title: This ruling is about copyright, and seems mostly unrelated to recent conversations about escaping censorship and surveilance, and the overall final throes of the open web. It's still pretty important since the lawsuit filed by the Anne Frank Fonds could be caricatured as "if this content is illegal in our country, it should not be on the Internet in other countries, because our citizens can still circumvent the publisher's geofence and access it" which would have wild consequences if that line of thought was applied. But, still: > At its core, the case forced Europe's top judges to answer a highly technical question: if a publisher actively tries to block visitors from a specific country, are they still breaking the law if a user sneaks past the digital border using circumvention software? > According to the CJEU, the answer is no. Could be conceived to have a tenuous link to the current debate on censorship, surveilance, etc.
- petcat 2mo agoSomewhat related to this same debate on censorship: French regulators order block of Polymarket's website [0] > The French gambling regulator said the site's continued availability constituted advertising. A ban on financial transactions to the site was already in place. After failing to compel Polymarket to geoblock France, it's crazy that French "regulators" can just order ISPs to block a website without any judicial review just because the mere existence of it on the internet constitutes "advertising" to French people. It seems like the EU in general is struggling badly with how to control internet access. Whether it's blocking VPNs, requiring access to private chats, or just blocking websites completely. [0] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/07/17/france-blocks-access-to-polymarket_6755581_7.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/07/17/france-b...
- spiderfarmer 2mo agoI don’t think it’s crazy to enforce laws, especially given the leeway the government gave that predatory website.
- VWWHFSfQ 2mo ago> given the leeway the government gave that predatory website. They are only blocking it because the French gambling mafia/authority is not getting their cut. They do not care in any way at all about a "predatory" gambling website. They just want their share.
- lokar 2mo agoThey want them to follow legally enacted laws in an open democracy.
- irishcoffee 2mo agoIf you’re aware of the organization called “FIFA” you can’t believe this is true. I responded to the wrong comment, I ment to respond to the GP.
- Fnoord 2mo agoFifa is Swiss, not French.
- irishcoffee 2mo agoI didn’t say anything about the French.
- spiderfarmer 2mo agoSo why bring it up.
- croes 2mo ago> which would have wild consequences if that line of thought was applied. Yeah, like third party sanctions. Oh wait…
- kps 2mo agoWithout robust copyright protection, what will incentivize Anne Frank to write more diary entries?
- Retric 2mo agoPeople do care about income streams for their descendants or charitable organizations etc. So it’s not completely ineffective. What’s broken is extending copyright after a work was already created. But that’s true even if the creator was still alive.
- eikenberry 2mo agoI think the OP was pointing out that writers will write even without monetary recompense.
- bryanrasmussen 2mo agoReally, all of them? In the history of the world there has never existed a writer who thought, hey I think I can do that pretty well, I suppose I will give a try and see if I can make money. There has never been a writer who, writing for love, also thought, hey that is a great idea for a science fiction story, and that magazine is paying for science fiction, I will, in entrepreneurial fashion try to write a story so I can earn money. If it works out really well I could even have a best seller and move out of this garret! Or did this presumed writer just say, nah, screw that, another volume of poetry about dark haired ladies for me! And of those who write even without monetary recompense, will they publish? Will they send off to someone their writing and then sit through the editorial process for months, and agree to changes in order to get published? Will they go through all the various parts of having to sell since they will not be getting paid for what they wrote? Rhetorically speaking, Anne Frank is a writer who wrote without caring about any of that stuff, but unless the argument is that we should be rounding up people to send to death camps in order to promote better literature I don't really see the point of the argument. Sure, after Anne Frank died and the war ended and her father had her diary published he went through the whole editing process and doing whatever was needed to spur sales of the book without much interest in benefiting from the copyright, but I sort of feel that he and his daughter may have been something of an outlier in most publication histories, and their story, engaging as it is, may not actually demonstrate so obviously that "writers will write even without monetary recompense" on edit: The idea that people are "compelled to write" is essentially an idea that writers have some sort of psychological problem, at least a form of neuroticism, the argument that as they will write without compensation and thus there is no reason to compensate them is at its best an argument to take advantage of people with a psychological condition, although, for all the reasons outlined above I think we can see that the argument is completely senseless and flies in the face of logic. There has been recent discussion of who was America's Homer, and I suggested Mark Twain https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927260 who was a guy who so blindingly obviously wrote for money in almost all cases that it would just be absolutely ludicrous to argue otherwise. Also, I see I got my downvote, oh noes!
- ryandrake 2mo agoThe irony of trying to block content/visitors based on country, while publishing on a platform called the "World Wide" web. IP address blocks that roughly correspond with geographic regions is kind of a design flaw.
- embedding-shape 2mo agoThat's what happens when you have idealistic nerds implementing a vision of what they want , rather than the typical software that is designed and built almost like an representation of the organization that built it, i.e Conway's Law.
- lostmsu 2mo agoThis comment sounds differently when you remember the Internet is from DARPA.
- embedding-shape 2mo agoBut then hopefully people also remember that WWW != The Internet and that WWW didn't come from DARPA at all but from CERN.
- red-iron-pine 2mo agoTCP/IP is ARPA -- wasn't DARPA then; is why it was called "ARPANET" the internet was, as everyone knows, invented Al Gore
- skinfaxi 2mo agoIs it a design or implementation flaw?
- ragall 2mo agoThere's no irony. A given name does not constitute a mandate to use it any particular way.
- layer8 2mo ago“Web” implies a structure. And the internet traffic travels physically from country to country. Not being bound to geographical regions is an illusion.
- Havoc 2mo agoNow watch the octogenarian UK lawmakers outlaw them anyway...right after they print the proposed law out because they don't do so well with computer stuff
- bbg2401 2mo ago> The UK government has officially scrapped the idea of restricting virtual private networks (VPNs) to enforce its impending social media bans, delivering a massive victory for digital privacy advocates. > Speaking on BBC Breakfast today, the government confirmed a major U-turn on the subject, with Online Safety Minister Kanishka Narayan stating: "We decided not to limit VPNs." > This was further cemented in a written parliamentary statement by Technology Secretary Liz Kendall, who clarified that the government will not age-gate or ban the best VPN software because "VPNs have legitimate privacy and security uses." https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/we-decided-not-to-limit-vpns-uk-government-u-turns-on-age-gating-privacy-tools https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/we-decide...
- protocolture 2mo agoBritish Parliament only has to be lucky once. VPNs have to be lucky every time.
- gbuk2013 2mo agoLeaving aside the fact that there are not enough octogenarians in the Commons to pass any legislation, there’s no need to for ageist statements like that.
- EmbarrassedHelp 2mo agoHopefully this ruling adds to some precedent in favour of VPNs to future court battles attacking VPNs for circumventing age verification.
- shevy-java 2mo agoWell, the EU courts will just follow suit the moment the legislation is changed. Today France did so - young people are disallowed from accessing antisocial media. The next step will be verification. Any parent not sniffing on their children will be put in jail. King Macron decreed this today. (He is such a small man though - all the small french, such as Napoleon, have a compensation-problem with regards to their rather insignificant height.) Here is a copy/pasteable snippet for lazy lobbyists so someone pass this to the lobby-judges at the EU courts: "In light of recent changes to legislation and the deadly effect of social media on babies and unborn ones, VPNs are agents of terrorism, attempting to circumvent healthy restrictions pertaining to protecting such young folk from the vile dangers of antisocial media consumption. Anyone attempting to browse the web for information without presenting a valid unique ID including biometric data is guilty of terrorism, facing a minimum penalty of 25 years and 1.000.000€ fine." This fight is, by the way, not just against VPNs. Age sniffing has never ever only been about children or VPNs. Some people still think it is about "protecting children". It's interesting.
- hdgvhicv 2mo ago> Well, the EU courts will just follow suit the moment the legislation is changed. That’s the whole point. The courts uphold the law. Change the law, and the courts change what they do.
- EmbarrassedHelp 2mo agoOne of the core functions of Court of Justice of the European Union (CEJU) is to perform judicial review, which means they can strike down laws. So it would not be legal to pass legislation attempting to make legal what they struck down.
- ChrisArchitect 2mo agoEU posts about it: Copyright in the European Union and geo-blocking: a work that is in the public domain can be published online free of charge in a Member State even if it remains protected in another Member State [pdf] https://curia.europa.eu/site/upload/docs/application/pdf/2026-07/cp260098en.pdf https://curia.europa.eu/site/upload/docs/application/pdf/202... Other blog post: CJEU clarifies when geo-blocking limits online copyright liability https://intellectual-property-helpdesk.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/cjeu-clarifies-when-geo-blocking-limits-online-copyright-liability-2026-07-14_en https://intellectual-property-helpdesk.ec.europa.eu/news-eve...
- derdi 2mo agoAnd the actual judgment: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62024CJ0788 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62... I find these are often very readable and interesting.
- yorwba 2mo agoIt seems like the article title was inspired by this sentence "By contrast, the provider of a VPN or similar services that are used in order to circumvent an ineffective geo-blocking measure and are lawful technical tools which users may legitimately use cannot be regarded as also having communicated the work to the public." I.e. if a VPN is a lawful technical tool, then the VPN provider isn't liable as the publisher of works accessible through it. That leaves open the possibility for VPNs that are not lawful or not mere technical tools to be liable.
- EmbarrassedHelp 2mo ago> Now, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands must determine whether the geo-blocking used by the website was state of the art and effective in practice. If so, the intended audience would not have included Dutch users, and no communication would have been made to the public in the Netherlands. This seems extremely problematic, depending on what "state of the art and effective" means. It seems like blocking VPN users is unfortunately still on the table, as are other invasive enforcement methods.
- shevy-java 2mo agoThat's good, but the lobbyists in the EU will continue to try to destroy VPN. The "we must protect children" is the ruse they are using right now. Everyone will have a unique ID in the future, otherwise you will be unable to browse (at the least for commercial systems such as Microsoft-based computer systems; I can not yet predict how it will work for Linux but systemd already has that field for your age: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954 - Poettering forbid further discussion about that issue too)
- merb 2mo agoBtw this also could come with negative consequences, like that they want to force id checks to access copyrighted material
- theodric 2mo ago[flagged]
- tomhow 2mo agoPlease don't post tasteless comments like this on HN. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48998094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48998094 and marked it off topic.
- tjwebbnorfolk 2mo agook but is it correct or incorrect?
- tomhow 2mo agoPlease don't act like a jerk. Everyone knows it's possible for a statement to be correct and vile at the same time.
- tjwebbnorfolk 2mo ago> Everyone knows it's possible for a statement to be correct and vile at the same time I really need to spend some time thinking about this one. If something is correct, I don't tend to continue analyzing it further to look for reasons to be angry.
- one33seven 2mo agoImagine your mum died. It's not nice to say "hey tjwebbnorfolk your mum is dead" is it? It's true, but vile.
- theodric 2mo agoGreat, I'm never getting into YC now...
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- uhhhhwhaaaa 2mo ago[flagged]
- tjwebbnorfolk 2mo ago[flagged]
- hdgvhicv 2mo agoIt’s big businesses that want to steal your data and use it against you that put the messages up.
- phendrenad2 2mo agoYes, they may say that NOW, because the case is related to a silly copyright duration dispute between Belgium and the Netherlands. I wouldn't be surprised if they go against this in future cases where a VPN is used to download FIFA matches in 8k or something.
- hahahaa 2mo agoYeah silly if ruled otherwise. It would mean copyright defaults to the laggiest country since someone could throw a paper plane with the material over a border.
- dzonga 2mo agoAge verification + plus some states trying to ban VPNs - what states miss - yeah they will destroy the so called big social networks or media providers like porn aggregation sites. what will simply happen - due to the following - HDDs are cheap, Torrents, Open source / cheap community software like Discord - communities will move to be mostly private and small. era of large social media is done. for media - download content via torrent - store in cheap HDDs. you can probably get an 8TB spinning metal for $250. cheap enough and good enough. payments - these already moved to crypto. for criminals monero. the internet as gated by bureaucrats will be left to the dweebs.
- movedx 2mo agoThis is hard to read, but I think you're saying the Internet will see a shift to "Sneaker Net" like tactics where people torrent stuff, store it on HDDs, and just move those HDDs around? Like they do in Cuba: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTTno8D-b2E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTTno8D-b2E For the most part, I agree.
- inigyou 2mo agoUsenet and email were also designed to work like this. The underlying transport layer was called UUCP.
- throw7 2mo agoUtah was the one I remember... have more states passed laws? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/utahs-new-law-regulating-vpns-goes-effect-next-week https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/utahs-new-law-regulati...
- yodsanklai 2mo agoSo much energy to prevent resourceful teenagers from watching porn?
- rglover 2mo agoThis is about porn's cousin, money.
- cougarbytes 2mo agoIf they ever make VPNs illegal first they need to add ivanti to the list. For amount of crimes it has committed against IT Security personnel.
- rubysprite 2mo agoIf they can target us by IP for surveillance pricing etc. then we need VPN as a basic survival tool. You can’t shop around someone changing prices around you knowing your income etc. Similarly you cannot meaningfully use social media, Reddit or even HN if your IP is on their lists. Unfortunately many online organizations have gone to war with their users so we need VPN and other tools to mitigate the abuse.
- jen_h 2mo agoThis--and also, if you're a US resident traveling abroad, you can't access most health data without a US-based VPN. Everything's "in the portal" -- you're effectively helpless without a VPN if, for example, a loved one is hospitalized or you need to access to your own data/records. (You can try phone calls, but expect the old, "Well, I can't help you, that's in the portal.")
- moezd 2mo agoVPN is a legit technology with real applications, not a toy you spin when lawmakers hurt you. And it's for Anne Frank's diaries out of all disputes? EU lawmakers follow tech trends by a lag of at least a decade and lay waste as they move along. Imagine what they will require once they understand how tech people no longer use chatbots and how much we can control AI agents.
- wickedsight 2mo agoIt feels weird/wrong that the Anne Frank Foundation of all things would fight against a free internet and battle companies that allow people to fight oppressive regimes.
- jeroenhd 2mo agoThey didn't like that the Dutch copyright law didn't apply outside of the Netherlands and tried to take back the documents with the "anyone visiting this page can be Dutch and therefore Dutch law still applies" argument. It's not about a free internet, it's plain old copyright and control.
- inigyou 2mo agoThis is very typical. An organisation will always name itself something that sounds good, especially if it plans to do bad things.
- coldtea 2mo agoJust means they'll likely target the VPNs to give them data directly instead of forcing users not to use them.
- miki123211 2mo ago> The case centered on the copyright battle involving Anne Frank's diary If there's a copyright dispute somewhere, you can bet it's either Anne Frank's estate, Tolkien's estate, or the Beatles's old record label. It's never the authors who actually made the work. It's always their heirs.
- saidnooneever 2mo agohow do u expect Anne to claim copyright -_-. this is how it works, copyright. people have it and then make claims...
- inigyou 2mo agoFor more like this, see the list of banned authors on MAM. I believe JK Rowling is one.
- miki123211 2mo agoNo, Rowling is not a banned author on MAM (and that list is exactly what I thought of when posting this comment). Hello, fellow user.
- cloudie78 2mo agoPiracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. The way to fight piracy is to offer a better service than the pirates. Simple as.
- kleiba2 2mo agoHigh prices might be an incentive for piracy but it cannot be a justification. It's a bit like saying it's okay to sneak into a movie theater because the prices for movie tickets are too high. To me, I feel it's an integral part of a democracy that if there is a law you don't like, you have means to get it changed, but it always involves convincing others that your viewpoint is the one everyone should adhere to. Likewise, it is a part of this system that you accept and adhere to the laws as they are until they have been changed. I don't system a society can work where everybody takes laws and regulations as mere suggestions and picks the ones they like to follow. When a providers offer something at a certain price and you don't like the price, but you would still really like the thing they're offering, you have two options: you either suck it up and pay the price they're asking or you simply move on and do without that thing. I find the idea of "these prices are outrageous, so I'm entitled to getting this thing without paying at all!" not ethically justifiable.
- vv_ 2mo agoIt's a reference from an old interview with Gabe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQweFurRz4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQweFurRz4g > It's a bit like saying it's okay to sneak into a movie theater because the prices for movie tickets are too high. It is not just the price, though. In some regions, for some media, the movie theater doesn't exist or the movies are not localized (no subtitles / dubbing). Nowadays you need several subscriptions to watch all of the content you would normally watch. There are also different tiers now for video quality. Essentially it is a lot more attractive to go to your local tracker and download the movie / anime / tv-show which will be of better quality and will be localized. On the other hand, I haven't pirated a single game for over 10 years. People will continue to consume content. But they aren't going to pay for what feels like a complete ripoff and manage 10+ subscriptions just to do it. If that is the way the industry is going then piracy will simply continue to thrive.
- mherdelight 2mo agoI figured that was common sense, but it's quite strange that the EU agrees with it.
- jeroenhd 2mo ago> However, in the Netherlands, parts of the text remain protected by copyright until 2037. I'm not for complete copyright abolishment but this is absolutely insane. In this case, the copyright term is so long because the original copyright lasted 50 years after publication (rather than the author's death), but a change in copyright law changed that to 70 years and moved the counting date. Regardless of legalities, taking action against distribution of Anne Frank's diary seems like the exact logical opposite of what this fund should be doing.
- lorreyfum 2mo ago[flagged]
- moomin 2mo agoIt is wild that, 80 years after a girl was murdered, she’s relevant to a court case involving technology it would have taken over an hour to explain in 1945.
- rsynnott 2mo agoExplaining the ECJ, the venue of the court case, would also likely have been, ah, a challenge.