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VPN providers in France ordered to block pirate sports IPTV

torrentfreak.com

61–70 of 103 posts

Re: VPN providers in France ordered to block pirate sports IPTV

#61
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright law has always been the most powerful force on the Internet. Which is why its collision with AI companies who pirate the whole Internet is very interesting.

If AI training is piracy then all art made by humans is also piracy... we cannot create anything without drawing inspiration from something else. The question is exactly how much is copied, and how obvious it is.

> If AI training is piracy

If it is not, can I install a pirated Windows or Offiice version ? (I use it to train "AI")

Re: VPN providers in France ordered to block pirate sports IPTV

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean, the cable companies block Dodger games from being on cable? That doesn't make sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout_(broadcasting)

If I'm understanding that right then the games are available to watch legally, it's a problem self-inflicted by the customers who choose not to get the service they're available on. Because it's not their preferred service.

Re: VPN providers in France ordered to block pirate sports IPTV

#63

When these VPN providers comply with these court orders, do they only implement blocking at the DNS level? Couldn't you still use these VPNs, but use a DNS provider that isn't censored?

Most likely they will be forced to implement IP level firewall rules. IE: Traffic from French users is not allowed to go to . This is one of the things the local ISPs already have to do.

[dead]

Re: VPN providers in France ordered to block pirate sports IPTV

#64

People here are very fond of Mullhad VPN. I have mixed experiences with NordVPN, especially under Linux. If you look for something cheap, AirVPN hast a sale going on: https://airvpn.org/ It works okay for me or my current needs. https://expatcircle.com/cms/privacy/vpn-services/

VPNs are cool but governments are always stronger.

There's no good outcome if people don't fight for their internet freedom. In Russia the providers block OpenVPN and wireguard already. In China it's probably so much worse

Re: VPN providers in France ordered to block pirate sports IPTV

#66

Does double VPN get around these kind of blocks? My understanding is the VPNs are expected to block the websites for french users, but it sounds like people could use VPN #1 to appear as a non-french user to VPN #2. VPN #2 can then allow the user to access the blocked websites, because the law only applies to french users.

this isn't explicitly stated but from context I understand that this is just DNS block.

so using vpn provider with some other DNS provider should be enough

there is also tor that is free and cannot be controlled in this way

Re: VPN providers in France ordered to block pirate sports IPTV

#67

I'm not a big sports fan but I know several people who are. I don't think there's another industry on earth whose customers are so willing and eager to spend money as fans watching their teams. And there's probably no industry on earth that tries as hard to prevent people from buying their services. The link between piracy and hypothetical profits has never been hard science, but when it comes to televized/streaming…

This, I've given up so many times wanting to watch a soccer game and found no way to do it. It is incredibly frustrating. I don't understand how the current system works as it is impossible to figure out how to watch games.

Re: VPN providers in France ordered to block pirate sports IPTV

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think e.g. NordVPN has any offices in France, but in theory the French authorities could tell French ISPs to block access to nordvpn.com (and all other Nord domains), though I'm not sure if the law applies to "secondary services" (instead of ordering ISPs to block domains that offer pirated sports streams, they'd be told to block domains that offer a service to circumvent the block). I believe Russia is doing…

Every VPS provider is "a service to circumvent the block" because you can configure one as a VPN in around 30 seconds, and these are all just legitimate foreign companies many of which use Cloudflare or other shared IP services for their own websites. Are you going to block AWS and Azure and everything on them because US-region instances don't implement French website blocks? You've gone from blocking a couple of pir…

> Are you going to block AWS and Azure and everything on them because US-region instances don't implement French website blocks

*French shrug*

I guess their idea is to just make it obnoxious enough for casual users. At the moment a French resident wanting to watch these games without paying can just install VPN, connect to it, and watch the pirate streams. If the VPN providers are forced to comply, having a VPS is still a viable option, but for a casual user it's complicated enough that it might be enough to significantly reduce the number of pirate-stream watchers.

Then again, because of Internet censorship in e.g. China, Iran and Russia, there are several services designed for a 1-click install of a personal VPN on a VPS...

Re: VPN providers in France ordered to block pirate sports IPTV

#69

I'm not a big sports fan but I know several people who are. I don't think there's another industry on earth whose customers are so willing and eager to spend money as fans watching their teams. And there's probably no industry on earth that tries as hard to prevent people from buying their services. The link between piracy and hypothetical profits has never been hard science, but when it comes to televized/streaming…

The link between privacy and hypothetical profits has been studied by the European commission (or parliament don't remember rn). The study was hidden and revealed only later when pirate mep Felix read digged in about it

Re: VPN providers in France ordered to block pirate sports IPTV

#70
post #58
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not defending them or what they are doing, but if you can’t afford to watch football you always have the option of not watching it. I don’t know why this is always framed as “make it cheap or it’s right to pirate it”

In the 90s I used to download star trek episodes in the UK the night after US broadcast. They simply weren't available. It's not a cost problem - when they were eventually released in the UK I spent the modern equivalent of $20 per episode to buy on VHS. If you're unwilling to sell it, then someone else will.

Still happening in 2025. :/

One well-known US show started airing the current season in the UK (on a streaming service) — 7 weeks after it started airing in the US.

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