from Hacker News

VPN providers in France ordered to block pirate sports IPTV

by gasull on 6/6/25, 3:31 PM with 96 comments

• by MentatOnMelange on 6/6/25, 6:11 PM

  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 sports, a lot of this pirating seems to happen because people aren't allowed to watch it legally in their area.

  This is a self-inflicted problem.

• by space_firmware on 6/6/25, 4:23 PM

  Really great that European courts have created all the legal tools for authoritarian control of the internet in the future, to prevent the scourge of watching sports streaming without paying.

  Before this, it was much easier for ISPs / DNS providers / VPN providers to push back against governments wanting to censor the internet because the companies wouldn't have the tools installed to do this kind of blocking. The companies can then argue it is a burden to be forced to implement the tools. That is no longer the case in Europe, and the use of these tools is likely to expand outside the sports domain.

• by Workaccount2 on 6/6/25, 4:46 PM

  How about making access to the games fairly priced and easily accessible?

  Streaming services have dramatically reduced piracy by making it way easier and way cheaper than ever before to consume content.

  I don't live in Europe, but if it is like US sports, you need to jump through hoops, pay through the nose, and have 14 different accounts to watch all the sports you want.

• by Beijinger on 6/6/25, 6:43 PM

  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/

• by Disposal8433 on 6/6/25, 6:26 PM

  I don't like watching sports on TV but it's hilarious that the courts said that you are forbidden to go to aliezstream.pro, and that Mullvad is not on the forbidden list. You MUST NOT combine both because it's very naugthy!

  Meanwhile Facebook stole all the books on the planet and it's not forbidden at all. It's very hard for me to take them seriously.

• by mitkebes on 6/6/25, 4:57 PM

  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.

• by FirmwareBurner on 6/6/25, 3:55 PM

  Thanks, I was looking for a list of pirated sports broadcasts.

• by kinow on 6/6/25, 4:02 PM

  I believe that's similar to what was done in Spain (for quite some time).

  https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2025/02/19/cloudflare-takes-...

  (Article from 2025, but last year it was already happening here)

• by notorandit on 6/7/25, 7:13 AM

  VPN customers should think twice before subscribing that kind of services.

  VPN providers are bound to their homeland laws and can be ordered at anytime by law enforcement agencies or by judge rulings to provide whatever is needed, eavesdropping included.

  Abroad VPN providers can be blocked with the same means.

  So, unless you need VPN for lawful activities, you are just trying to fool around the law.

• by retrodaredevil on 6/6/25, 4:04 PM

  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?

• by eloisant on 6/6/25, 4:51 PM

  They will have to confirm it in a Swiss court if they want ProtonVPN to comply.

• by fifteen1506 on 6/6/25, 4:14 PM

  People tend to assume workarounds will be found. They will -- no doubt.

  But in time, it will be as easy as installing Linux on a PS5.

  I just hope unverified operating systems won't be blocked on similar grounds.