For 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.
The 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.
“Web” implies a structure. And the internet traffic travels physically from country to country. Not being bound to geographical regions is an illusion.
Now 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
There isn't precedent in the civil-law system in Europe. Every case is decided individually. However, this will probably influence whether someone decides to attack VPNs.
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]
That'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 -
Poettering forbid further discussion about that issue too)
Yes, 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.
Yeah 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.
Age 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.
This--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.")
VPN 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.
It 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.
> 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.
It 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.
31 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 82.8 ms ] threadThis 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.
Yeah, like third party sanctions.
Oh wait…
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/202...
Other blog post:
CJEU clarifies when geo-blocking limits online copyright liability
https://intellectual-property-helpdesk.ec.europa.eu/news-eve...
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.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/utahs-new-law-regulati...
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.
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.")
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.
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.
The way to fight piracy is to offer a better service than the pirates. Simple as.
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.