In a significant legal development for digital rights and internet intermediaries, the Paris Judicial Court has handed sports broadcaster beIN Sports a major defeat in its ongoing crusade against online piracy. The court has rejected the broadcaster’s demands for heavy financial penalties against several virtual private network (VPN) providers and cloud infrastructure giant Cloudflare, establishing that intermediaries are obligated only to make reasonable efforts to block unauthorized content rather than guaranteeing a flawless outcome.
The dispute stems back to May, when the Paris Judicial Court ordered a collective group of VPN providers to implement blocks against ten specific pirate websites and IPTV platforms that were illegally streaming Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tour matches. Among the targeted domains were popular streaming hubs such as thetvapp.to and tennistream.com. This initial judicial order followed a familiar, increasingly standardized pattern in France, requested aggressively by beIN Sports, which holds the exclusive French broadcasting rights for the vast majority of WTA tour matches. Just a day after securing the initial VPN blocking mandate, the broadcaster successfully obtained a similarly sweeping order directed at Cloudflare.
When beIN Sports originally filed its requests, the broadcaster asked the court to impose steep daily penalties amounting to 2,000 euros per day for each domain that two specific VPN providers failed to block entirely. At the time, the court sensibly refused to grant those punitive measures, noting that there was no substantive evidence showing the providers harbored any malicious intent to circumvent or ignore the judicial mandate. The court advised that if technical or operational problems arose during implementation, the involved parties could return to court to seek clarification. That is precisely what occurred, escalating the legal conflict.
beIN Loses Penalty Request
As first revealed by French digital publication L’Informé, representatives for beIN Sports returned to the Paris Judicial Court to voice vehement complaints that the targeted VPN providers and Cloudflare had failed to implement comprehensive and effective blocks against the listed pirate domains. Emboldened by their initial legal standing, the broadcaster escalated its financial demands, requesting a staggering daily penalty of 10,000 euros for every single domain that remained accessible to internet users.
During the subsequent hearing, Cloudflare, Surfshark, and Nordvpn—all of which were collectively represented by the same legal counsel—defended their actions by pointing to complex technical constraints inherent in their services. They assured the court that they had exerted their absolute best efforts to comply with the legal mandates within the boundaries of their technological capabilities. A fourth provider, Proton, was also officially targeted by the broadcaster’s motion but ultimately failed to show up at the hearing.
A closer examination of the execution revealed that the blocking efforts were indeed not bulletproof or absolute. Cloudflare successfully managed to block three out of the four targeted sites, though it did so strictly through its content delivery network (CDN) infrastructure. Meanwhile, Surfshark and NordVPN successfully blocked six out of eleven domains, but restricted their actions exclusively to the DNS service operating on their physical servers located within French borders.
‘Reasonable Effort’ Standard Upheld
To the presiding judges, these implemented measures were legally sufficient. In two formal rulings issued on October 7, the court concluded that internet intermediaries are legally required to make a reasonable effort to block designated pirate sites, but they are under no legal obligation to guarantee a flawless outcome. This vital distinction aligns directly with established case law from the Court of Justice of the European Union. Review of the case files clearly demonstrated that all the targeted companies had carried out the court-ordered directives, at least in part.
As quoted and translated by L’Informé, the court firmly rejected the broadcaster’s heavy-handed demands: "The requested penalty (…) therefore does not appear necessary or proportionate, given the need to strike a fair balance between the protection of the intellectual property rights of copyright and neighboring rights holders, and the freedom to conduct a business enjoyed by economic operators."
The original blocking orders themselves remain fully in effect until the conclusion of the WTA tennis season, which is currently scheduled to wrap up on November 14. In the interim, beIN Sports retains the legal right to appeal the court’s rejection of its penalty requests.
This outcome mirrors a strikingly similar decision handed down by the very same Paris court last month in a case involving rival broadcaster Canal+ and Cloudflare. In that instance, Canal+ was denied explosive daily penalties of 50,000 euros per site. The court concluded in that case that Cloudflare was only obligated to take reasonable measures, which it successfully fulfilled by implementing blocks through its CDN.
The legal battleground in France is far from settled, however. DNS resolver Quad9 stands next in line to face the broadcaster’s aggressive tactics. According to the Swiss-based non-profit foundation, beIN Sports is demanding 10,000 euros per domain, per day, which would cumulatively add up to a staggering 580,000 euros every single day. Quad9’s legal position differs fundamentally from the other intermediaries, however, because the resolver is not blocking any of the targeted domains at all. A definitive judicial decision regarding that specific request is expected to be handed down later this month.
Appeals Court Hits Pause
These recent penalty rejections are not the only significant setback encountered by rightsholders attempting to enforce broad blocking mandates through French courts. The major VPN providers are simultaneously fighting the underlying blocking orders directly, and that overarching legal battle has just been granted crucial breathing room.
Last year, prominent VPN providers including NordVPN, Proton, and CyberGhost formally appealed one of the very first VPN blocking orders ever issued in France, which had been successfully obtained by the French professional football league, LFP, back in May 2025.
Responding to an urgent request filed by the VPN providers, the Paris Court of Appeal issued a significant procedural decision on September 30 to put that specific case entirely on hold. Rather than rushing to issue a ruling on the merits of the appeal, the court decided to wait for France’s highest court of ordinary jurisdiction, the Cour de cassation, to issue definitive decisions regarding appeals filed against seven earlier related rulings.
These pivotal rulings, which were issued in March and May of this year, previously upheld broad site-blocking orders that Canal+ had successfully obtained against major DNS providers. During the March proceedings, technology giants Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco lost their respective appeals regarding pirate site DNS blocking. In response to those losses, several major DNS providers escalated the matter further by taking their fight to the Supreme Court.
While the Paris Court of Appeal explicitly acknowledged that the ongoing VPN disputes are not identical to the DNS cases, it determined that there is a substantial and undeniable overlap of fundamental legal questions to justify freezing the current case until the Supreme Court issues its guidance.
As articulated by the appeals court in its translated ruling: "Despite the differences, namely that the seven decisions under appeal concern DNS providers rather than VPNs, and that they were issued at the request of the Canal Plus companies rather than LFP and LFP1, the present case has many legal questions in common with the rulings under appeal before the Supreme Court."
Among these critical overlapping questions are deeply complex issues concerning who can legally be ordered to assist in halting online piracy, whether French site-blocking legislation fully complies with broader European Union law, how copyright infringements must be definitively proven in court, and the exact legal threshold for when blocking measures can be deemed truly proportionate.
While it remains entirely unknown when the Supreme Court will ultimately hand down its rulings on these matters, the Paris Court of Appeal clearly believes that the final outcome will profoundly influence the ultimate fate of the VPN blocking case. A complete copy of the Paris Court of Appeal’s formal freeze ruling is publicly available under case reference RG 25/09229.
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