this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2026
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200
Copyright Industry Continues Its Efforts To Ban VPNs (www.techdirt.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by General_Effort@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 57 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

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.

How is bypassing georestrictions piracy?

Also good luck actually banning VPNs. China tried that and many people there still use them.

Fuck copyright law in general. It has done damage to humanity as a whole while making a wealthy few even richer.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 27 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Any system whereby a thousand middlemen don’t get to get a cut of the money is illegal and immoral. /s

[–] defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 weeks ago

Won't anyone think of the poor shareholders?

[–] nforminvasion@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Stallman is proven right more and more everyday

[–] defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

He's been right about damn near everything software related since the 80s.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 4 points 2 weeks ago

https://tech.yahoo.com/computing/articles/debian-edition-doesnt-linux-172134222.html

The Debian project has just released a new snapshot of its alternative operating system, Debian GNU/Hurd 2025, which now includes a working 64-bit edition. This is a massive update for a project that many people forget exists, but you need to know right away that this is not a Linux distribution.

This latest release is based on Debian Trixie, or more specifically, the testing branch known as Sid. The Hurd is the original kernel that the GNU project was developing before Linus Torvalds announced his "hobby" project back in 1991.

I don't think that Linux is going anywhere, but Hurd does march on!

[–] limonfiesta@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Russia has banned them, sort of.

Although I don't think their methods would work here, or rather, I don't think they could grab the kind of power necessary.

Russia now has regional internet blackouts, were they effectively only allow a small number of white listed sites to be accessible.

So if you you literally cannot reach the VPN servers because only a handful of Russian government websites, preferred businesses, and UK banks (oligarchs gotta oligarch) are whitelisted, well then you banned VPNs, again, sort of.

[–] defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Whitelists are the death of the Internet if they are implemented. We already have a massive issue with corporate centralization of the Internet, and if free and open competition isn't allowed to exist in the first place, then why even have an Internet?

It also helps the government keep ultimate control over their populace, which I'm sure is what they want at the end of the day like any regime throughout history.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago

Meshtastic needs to hurry up and develop a way to connect to remote servers/send data over encrypted radio frequencies...

[–] some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

In the case of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, etc. they have control of the routes in and out of the country. In other words, if an individual is inside one of those countries and tries to connect to an outside resource, that connection passes through a government-controlled device and every request is ostensibly approved or denied. This would not work in most other countries. Those governments would have to wrangle many disparate entities to seize control at scale. Even then there are ways to disguise connections beyond using a VPN.

(I feel like most people here are gonna say "duh, we know". This is for the people in the back.)

[–] timwa@lemmy.snowgoons.ro 4 points 2 weeks ago

This gets repeated a lot - but for avoidance of doubt, practically no normal people use VPNs in China, and the government is very successful at blocking them.

You can set up a brand new, never seen before VPN on entirely new IPs and random ports today, and at 1am tomorrow it'll be blocked. Commercial VPNs are basically unusable. (For a while, Cloudflare Warp was a very nice way around - but they put a stop to that too.)

IF you have a competent government willing to put the work in, blocking VPNs is entitely doable. That "if" is probably our best hope in the west, though.

[–] phonics@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Licences for media are country specific. So vpns allow you to circumvent that. I don't beleive it's piracy. But it's....something.

[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

That made sense at a time when media was physical and could be stopped at the border. There are no border posts in the internet.

So now we could either a) make the copyright industry draw up new licenses that make sense for the internet, or b) make everyone else spend billions to create and suffer border posts in the internet.

[–] defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Or c) abolish copyright law entirely.

[–] alakey@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago

That's actually part of the motivation behind russian internet isolation, their head bitch leading the charge on it believes that the internet "violates the existence of borders in the world".

[–] phonics@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah it's outdated. But should the worldwide license cost the same as the licence just for lithuania? What if you were a small upstart just trying to do something online for your local community? Or a school hosting licenced media for study purposes.

While you are right there are theoretically no borders on the internet. They can be built, Netflix US or Netflix AUS for instance are geo blocking so they can pay smaller licences. And that is their right just as much as it is for a school which is fenced with a .edu login. At least in copyright laws current iteration. Who should be responsible for an outside actor getting access?

Fun to think about.

[–] defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

So if I buy a physical game in the US, that is me buying a licence to play the game (as it has already been made clear legally that I do not own the game through means of DRM). If I then move to a dofferent country and take that game with me without repurchasing it in another country, is that piracy?

[–] cageythree@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yes. And airlines are active participants in the piracy chain. I mean, they openly advertise their services with the ability to switch the country you're in! BAN THEM!

[–] phonics@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Na coz you own the media outright. But streaming a show from a country on Netflix that you are not in, is against the licences terms. I don't think you would be liable. Its more a Netflix problem providing media to someone who theyre not licenced to share it with.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 36 points 2 weeks ago

"copyright industry continues efforts to remove locks from homes so they can come in and inspect your media for piracy any time they want"

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 31 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

If they succeed in banning vpn, then millions of people won't be able to do their jobs. Because tons of companies use it.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They'll carve out a business exception. Only licensed users will be allowed to use VPNs. Everyone else is a second class citizen.

Which won't be broadly enforceable, but it'll fuck with people enough.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 0 points 2 weeks ago

All you have to do is configure the gateway and client to use port 443.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Some of us may lose their basic human rights but that‘s a sacrifice shareholders are willing to make.

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Well my company officially stop using vpn as of yesterday due to this bullshit. So guess Allstate sees this happening.

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

IP has more rights than humans

[–] acme401@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Guns have more rights than women

[–] PhoenixDog@lemmy.world -1 points 2 weeks ago

Embryos have more rights than living human beings.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago

Suing AI companies for the biggest heist in history: 🥱

Ban basic human rights for profit: 🤑

[–] aliser@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

can't ban VPNs entirely, people will find a way to circomvent. and what people living in "geo-restricted" areas should even do?? yeah lets make it HARDER for them to access content legitimately surely they will stop piracy. if a service restricts content for me, I WILL pirate it.

[–] some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No, you cannot ban VPN tech. The cat's out of the bag. You and I would still gain access. But an attempted ban could have quite the chilling effect on the average person, driving the tech underground and enabling bad actors.

[–] Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Banning VPNs means the spread out locations in my companies network don't get to talk to one another. Plus I can run a tunnel through a ssh session and the only way they could tell it was a VPN would be by the amount of traffic. Its pointless and the only reason they keep trying is that the recording pukes don't understand how anything works other than their narrow greed driven focus.

[–] LordCrom@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Not just ssh.... any traffic allowed can be used to encapsulate. Open up dns, use that. The only giveaway is the amount of traffic .

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If they really wanted to go down that hole, They could force companies to register keys with the ISP so they could snoop.

[–] some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

It would add steps and make it more expensive, but how would you prevent registered companies from selling access to anyone who wanted to use that connection? You can't really. Like the user above said, they're ignorant to think they could force control. Users will find ways to circumvent these measures and will always be a step ahead.

[–] Flying_Lynx@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 weeks ago

It is good for my awareness to read the news about my country from another country. Or read the local news of some event at the (some obscure) local website from another country, instead of a summarized and perhaps skewed global news article of that same country.

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Advertisers can't figure out who you are and service providers don't know if you are from where you say you are. This and age verification are about making money and commerce.