France media giants win court ruling to order VPNs to block 200 illegal sports streaming sites
In a major move in the fight against illegal sports streaming, French media giants Canal+ secured a landmark ruling on Friday from the Paris Judicial Court, ordering the ban on over 200 illegal sports streaming websites across several Virtual Private Network (VPN) services.
According to Footboom, VPN providers have been handed 'a tight, three-day window to execute the technical finesse needed to block these sites'.
The historic ruling by the Paris court covers the 2024-25 season of the Premier League, the UEFA Champions League, France's Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 divisions and the country's Top 14 rugby league. The report further stated that Canal+ and the French Professional Football League (LFP) will keep a watchful tab to report more digital pirate websites to France's anti-piracy vigilance authority, Arcom.
VPNs that have been utilised by fans to copy IP addresses and allow access to illegal streams of various sporting tournaments will also fall under scrutiny. The judicial court has therefore demanded NordVPN, Proton, CyberGhost, Surfshark, and ExpressVPN to put a halt on offering cushion to the illegal streams.
Welcoming the decision to stub such streams, Canal+ said it 'sends a strong message regarding the responsibility of VPN providers — recognised for the first time as technical intermediaries — in the illegal broadcasting of sports content'.
Canal+ added it 'is proud to have initiated this major step forward in the fight against sports piracy in France and beyond, setting a legal precedent'.
'Following previous court orders obtained in 2022 targeting illegal streaming sites via Internet Service Providers, in 2024 via alternative DNS providers, and in 2025 via CDN and proxy services, this new ruling against VPNs is fully aligned with the group's strategy to hold all types of technical intermediaries accountable in the battle against audiovisual piracy,' the statement read.
Canal+ also added that the group had obtained the blocking of over 1,300 domain names to combat content piracy in France in 2024 alone.
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