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      DNS Resolver Quad9 Wins Pirate Site Blocking Appeal Against Sony

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Friday, 8 December - 10:16 · 3 minutes

    quad9 In 2021 , Sony Music obtained an injunction that ordered DNS resolver Quad9 to block a popular pirate site.

    The injunction, issued by the District Court of Hamburg, required the Swiss DNS resolver to block access to a site that links to pirated music.

    The name of the targeted site initially remained a mystery, but we deduced that Canna.to was the target. That site was, not coincidentally, also targeted by a voluntary blocking agreement previously signed by rightsholders and ISPs.

    The music groups presumably targeted the site to prevent people from circumventing the ISP blockades. However, the non-profit Quad9 Foundation was not happy with this far-reaching measure and fiercely opposed the injunction.

    The DNS resolver stressed that it doesn’t condone piracy but believes that enforcing blocking measures through third-party intermediaries, that don’t host any content, is a step too far.

    This initial objection failed; the Regional Court in Hamburg upheld the blocking injunction . However, the case continued at the Higher Regional Court in Dresden where Quad9 managed to turn the case around.

    Quad9 Books Key Victory in Court

    The Higher Regional Court ultimately concludes that DNS resolvers can’t be held liable under German and European law. These services are neutral intermediaries and don’t play a “central role” in the copyright-infringing activities of pirate sites.

    The court stresses that the DNS resolver doesn’t host any pirated content and its users don’t make copyright-infringing content available either. DNS resolvers simply translate a domain name request to an IP-address.

    “[Quad9] does not initiate this transmission, nor does it select the addressee and the content of the information. It plays a less central role than those who have committed the infringement themselves (site operator) or have contributed to it by providing services (hosting provider),” the court writes (translated).

    “The users of [Quad9] do not make infringing content publicly available but at best request it. The defendant does not store this content. It doesn’t transmit such content, but only the domain request of a user and the IP address of the server on which this content may be stored.”

    Since Quad9 doesn’t play a “central role” in the copyright infringing activities it can’t be held liable. As a result, it can’t be ordered by an injunction to block access to the pirate site.

    german verdict

    The public DNS resolver is pleased with the outcome and immediately removed all blocking measures on its system. This means that all domains of CannaPower, also dubbed the “ Queen of Music Warez ”, are available globally once again.

    “Today marks a bright moment in the efforts to keep the internet a neutral and trusted resource for everyone,” Quad9 writes while thanking all supporters of its legal efforts.

    Summary of the outcome (by Quad9’s law firm Rickert.law )
    summary

    This is the second order of this kind in Germany this fall. Previously, the Higher Regional Court of Cologne concluded that Cloudflare doesn’t have to take any measures on its public DNS resolver in response to copyright complaints, as the service operates in a purely passive, automatic, and neutral manner.

    Trouble Ahead in Italy

    The Dresden court stressed that its decision is final, which means the case cannot go to a higher court. This limits Sony’s options to appeal the verdict. However, the trouble for Quad9 isn’t over yet.

    Over in Italy, Sony Music Italy, Universal Music Italy, Warner Music Italy, and the Italian Music Industry Federation, have recently requested similar DNS blocking measures from Quad9.

    The music companies haven’t filed a lawsuit yet but want the DNS provider to ban the domain names of three torrent sites: LimeTorrents, KickassTorrents, and Ilcorsaronero. These three targets were not chosen at random. An Italian court previously ordered Cloudflare’s DNS resolver to block the same domain names.

    Quad9 is determined to fight this blocking request in Italy, but it first wants to make sure that the German case is final. In the meantime, the DNS resolver has complied with the Italian request by blocking the aforementioned torrent sites globally.

    A copy of the order from the Higher Regional Court in Dresden is available here ( German, pdf ) and a machine-translated English copy can be found here (pdf)

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Pirate Site Not Impressed by Global DNS Blocking Order

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Thursday, 3 August, 2023 - 11:16 · 2 minutes

    cannapower Founded in the last millennium, CannaPower must be one of the oldest pirate sites still around today.

    The site currently indexes more than 50,000 audio releases, which are shared through external hosting platforms.

    CannaPower Blocking Efforts

    With roughly a million monthly visits, mostly from Germany, the download portal is large enough to appear on the music industry’s radar. In fact, it’s become one of the prime enforcement targets and an anti-piracy guinea pig of sorts.

    When German Internet providers teamed up with copyright holders and agreed to voluntarily block blatant pirate sites , CannaPower was one of the first targets. At the time, the site operated from the Canna.to domain. Today, Canna-Power.to is its main home, but that domain is blocked too.

    The blockades made it more difficult for Germans to visit the site, but certainly not impossible. By switching to a DNS resolver not controlled by local Internet providers, many people can regain access to the site.

    Sony Targets DNS Resolver

    Rightsholders are well aware of this. In fact, this was likely one of the main reasons that the German branch of Sony Music filed a lawsuit against DNS resolver Quad9 in 2021. The main goal of this court case was to block CannaPower at the third-party DNS resolver.

    Sony Music’s lawsuit was successful . While Quad9 is determined to have the blocking order overturned, it initially complied with the blocking order in Germany only. However, after a follow-up complaint from Sony and a €10,000 fine , this blocking effort was rolled out globally.

    The DNS blocking case in Germany will set an important precedent but, thus far, it hasn’t resulted in CannaPower throwing in the towel. Quad9 is a relatively small DNS resolver compared to Google, OpenDNS, and Cloudflare, so the effects are limited.

    ‘They’ll Never Get Us Down’

    In an interview with the German site Tarnkappe , the site says that Quad9’s global DNS blocking efforts have no meaningful effect on its traffic numbers. And if more blocking orders should follow, the site doesn’t plan to stop either.

    “The number of visitors has remained constant,” CannaPower says. “They will never get us down! And when the time comes, yes, then we’ll just move to the Tor network.”

    On the Tor network, rightsholders can’t easily restrict access to a domain name, since ISPs and regular DNS resolvers can’t see this traffic.

    canna power

    Quad9 actually didn’t notice Quad9’s new global blocking effort and found out about it through the news. For now, the site will remain operational from the canna-power.to domain but it plans to switch to a new one in the near future, although that’s reportedly not related to the blocking efforts.

    In addition to making it harder for users to access the site, blockades can also lower the revenue of pirate sites by reducing their traffic. While that may happen to CannaPower in the future, money doesn’t appear to be a weak spot either.

    “I’m already getting hardly any donations or advertising revenue. The project is basically a hobby of mine. I finance almost everything out of my own pocket. And that will not change in the future,” CannaPower’s operator concludes.

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Quad9 Blocks Pirate Site Globally After Sony Demanded €10,000 Fine

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Tuesday, 25 July, 2023 - 19:45 · 4 minutes

    quad9 In 2021, Sony Music obtained an injunction ordering DNS resolver Quad9 to block the popular pirate site Canna.to.

    The injunction , issued by the District Court of Hamburg, required the Swiss DNS resolver to block its users from accessing the site to prevent the distribution of pirated copies of Evanescence’s album “ The Bitter Truth “.

    Quad9 Appeals Site Blocking Injunction

    The Quad9 Foundation fiercely opposed the injunction. The not-for-profit foundation submitted an appeal hoping to overturn the blocking order, arguing that the decision set a dangerous precedent.

    The DNS resolver stressed that it doesn’t condone piracy but believes that enforcing blocking measures through third-party intermediaries, that don’t host any content, is a step too far.

    This initial objection failed; the Regional Court in Hamburg upheld the blocking injunction. However, this was only a preliminary proceeding and Quad9 promised to continue the legal battle, warning of a broad impact on the Internet ecosystem.

    Sony Starts Main Proceeding

    After Sony’s preliminary victory, the music company initiated a main proceeding at the Leipzig court. This was the next step in the legal process and allowed both sides to provide more evidence and expert opinions.

    Sony, for example, referenced earlier jurisprudence where Germany’s Federal Court ruled that services such as YouTube can be held liable for copyright infringement if they fail to properly respond to copyright holder complaints.

    Quad9’s expert, Prof. Dr. Ruth Janal, contested this line of reasoning , noting that, under EU law, DNS resolvers shouldn’t be treated in the same fashion as platforms that actually host content.

    Court Confirms Blockade

    After hearing arguments from both sides, earlier this year the Regional Court of Leipzig handed a win to Sony. This means that Quad9 is required to block the music piracy site canna.to. If not, those responsible face a hefty fine, or even a prison sentence.

    “The defendant is liable as a perpetrator because it makes its DNS resolver available to Internet users and, through this, it refers to the canna.to service with the infringing download offers relating to the music album in dispute,” the Court wrote.

    Judge Werner argues that Quad9 should have taken action when the copyright holder alerted it to a pirated copy of the Evanescence album. Its intentional failure to act makes the DNS resolver liable.

    Quad9 Appeals

    Quad9 characterized the decision of the Leipzig Regional Court as absurd. In essence, it ruled that a DMS resolver can be held liable for the infringements of third-party websites. This is contrary to EU and German law, according to the foundation.

    The DNS resolver sees itself as a neutral intermediary but the court’s judgment classified it as an actual wrongdoer. This is an “absurdly extreme” decision according to Quad9, which filed an appeal at the Dresden Higher Regional Court last month.

    Under EU and German law, DNS providers should be classified as Internet access providers, not hosting platforms. As such, they shouldn’t be held directly liable for third-party infringements.

    “[H]osting providers or platforms through which content is made available for retrieval via the Internet are fundamentally different in terms of their technical functionality and also the provider’s ability to influence content posted by customers to operate a DNS resolver,” the appeal filing reads.

    German Ruling, Global Blockade

    Quad9 was already heavily disappointed by the original court ruling but then a few weeks ago, the situation took another turn for the worse.

    Sony wasn’t happy with the geo-blocking measures taken by the DNS provider to comply with the ruling. The music company applied for an administrative fine at the Regional Court in Hamburg, arguing that the measures were ineffective.

    According to Sony, the blocked Canna.to (and the new canna-power.to domain) site could still be reached by Germans through a VPN. In addition, users of an unnamed mobile network were also able to access the site, presumably because their traffic was routed outside of Germany.

    Facing a €10,000 administrative fine, Quad9 felt that it had no other option than to block the pirate site globally, across its entire service.

    “The fact that the court issued a fine meant that we had to impose the blocking at the global level,” Quad9 explains .

    The DNS provider doesn’t agree with the fine as it has zero control over how third parties may circumvent blocking measures. However, its hands are tied and a global blockade is the only solution now.

    Ultimately, Quad9 hopes that the lower court’s blocking order will be overturned on appeal. It will continue to fight the case, even if that takes several years.

    “Quad9 is prepared to continue the battle for freedom of access to information and Internet sovereignty. Cases like this are typically drawn out over the course of months and years.

    “We hope that we will ultimately prevail as we consider it to be inappropriate and disproportionate to be required to roll out blocking based on a court decision in one country to result in a global block,” Quad9 concludes.

    —-

    A translated copy of the appeal brief filed by Quad9’s lawyer at the Dresden Higher Regional Court is available here (pdf)

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      DNS Resolver Quad9 Loses Global Pirate Site Blocking Case Against Sony

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Wednesday, 8 March, 2023 - 12:01 · 5 minutes

    quad9 In 2021, Sony Music obtained an injunction ordering DNS resolver Quad9 to block the popular pirate site Canna.to.

    The injunction , issued by the District Court of Hamburg, required the Swiss DNS resolver to block its users from accessing the site to prevent the distribution of pirated copies of Evanescence’s album “ The Bitter Truth “.

    Quad9 Appeals Site Blocking Injunction

    The Quad9 Foundation fiercely opposed the injunction. The not-for-profit foundation submitted an appeal to the Court hoping to overturn the blocking order, arguing that the decision set a dangerous precedent.

    The DNS resolver stressed that it doesn’t condone piracy. However, it believes that enforcing blocking measures through third-party intermediaries, that don’t host any content, is a step too far.

    This initial objection failed; the Regional Court in Hamburg upheld the blocking injunction last December . However, this was only a preliminary proceeding and Quad9 promised to continue the legal battle, warning of a broad impact on the Internet ecosystem.

    Sony Files Main Proceeding

    After Sony’s preliminary victory, the music company initiated a main proceeding at the Leipzig court. This was the next step in the legal process and allowed both sides to provide more evidence and expert opinions.

    Sony, for example, referenced earlier jurisprudence where Germany’s Federal Court ruled that services such as YouTube can be held liable for copyright infringement if they fail to properly respond to copyright holder complaints.

    Quad9’s expert, Prof. Dr. Ruth Janal, contested this line of reasoning , noting that, under EU law, DNS resolvers shouldn’t be treated in the same fashion as platforms that actually host content

    Quad9 is more akin to a mere conduit service than a hosting provider, Prof. Janal countered. Courts could instead require Quad9 to take action through a “no-fault” injunction, a process that’s already used in ISP blocking orders. In those cases, however, the intermediary isn’t held liable for pirating users.

    Court Confirms DNS Blocking Requirement

    After hearing both sides, the Regional Court of Leipzig ultimately handed a win to Sony. This means that Quad9 is required to block the music piracy site canna.to globally. If not, those responsible face a hefty fine, or even a prison sentence.

    “The defendant is liable as a perpetrator because it makes its DNS resolver available to Internet users and, through this, it refers to the canna.to service with the infringing download offers relating to the music album in dispute,” the Court writes.

    Judge Werner argues that Quad9 should have taken action when the copyright holder alerted it to a pirated copy of the Evanescence album. Its intentional failure to act makes the DNS resolver liable.

    quad

    In its defense, Quad9 warned that blocking measures have a significant impact on its system architecture and performance. The Court wasn’t receptive to this argument, as the DNS resolver already actively blocks malware as one of its features.

    Thus far, Quad9 has blocked Canna.to only for German users. However, the court order suggests that a global blocking order is reasonable and warranted, which is in line with Sony Music’s demands.

    “It would also be harmless if, in accordance with the defendant’s argument, websites were blocked globally and irrespective of a specific jurisdiction for all Internet users who use the defendant’s DNS resolver.

    “Even worldwide, no legitimate interest of Internet users in accessing this website with obviously exclusively illegal offers is apparent, so that the question of overblocking does not arise,” Judge Werner adds.

    ‘Absurdly Extreme’

    Quad9 is disappointed with the verdict. According to the non-profit foundation, the court order opens the door to widespread global blocking orders that go far beyond the jurisdiction they’re issued in.

    “Quad9 believes this is an exceptionally dangerous precedent that could lead to future global-reaching commercialized and political censorship if DNS blocking is applied globally without geographic limitations to certain jurisdictions.”

    In addition, the DNS resolver believes that the Court mistakenly labels the service as a liable ‘wrongdoer’. Expanding liability to seemingly neutral services that don’t host any content is “absurdly extreme”, Quad9 notes.

    “To put this into perspective, applying wrongdoer liability in this setting is akin to charging a pen manufacturer with fraud because a stranger forged documents while using the manufacturer’s writing utensil,” the Foundation writes.

    Quad9 Continues to Fight

    According to Quad9, Sony Music hand-picked a relatively small player with limited means, to obtain a favorable precedent. However, Quad9 isn’t giving up the fight. The company will appeal the judgment at the Dresden Court of Appeal, with help from the German Society for Freedom Rights (GFF).

    GFF project coordinator Felix Reda , who previously served as a Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, believes that the Leipzig Regional Court has made a glaring error of judgment.

    “It treats Quad9 as if the service itself were committing copyright infringement, even though it merely resolves a website name into an IP address,” Reda tells TorrentFreak.

    “If one follows this reasoning, the copyright liability of completely neutral infrastructure services like Quad9 would be even stricter than that of social networks, whose copyright liability was extended by the controversial EU Copyright Directive.”

    In common with Prof. Janal, Reda stresses that Quad9 should receive similar treatment as ISPs, instead of equating the service to a hosting provider.

    “The Digital Services Act makes it unequivocally clear that the liability rules for Internet access providers apply to DNS services. We are confident that this misinterpretation of European and German legal principles will be overturned by the Court of Appeals,” he notes.

    For now, Quad9 says it will comply with the court order. This means that it will block access to the Canna.to domain. Whether this will make much of a difference is unknown, as the site moved to the Canna-Power.to domain name a while ago.

    A copy of the Regional Court of Leipzig’s order is available here (German, pdf) and a translated English copy can be found here (pdf)

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Sony vs. Quad9: Court Hears Landmark DNS Piracy Blocking Case

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Thursday, 9 February, 2023 - 19:18 · 4 minutes

    quad9 In 2021, Sony Music obtained an injunction that ordered DNS resolver Quad9 to block a popular pirate site.

    The injunction, issued by the District Court of Hamburg, required the Swiss DNS resolver to block access to a site that links to pirated music.

    The name of the targeted site wasn’t revealed, but we deduced that Canna.to was the target. That site was also targeted in a voluntary blocking agreement previously signed by rightsholders and ISPs.

    Quad9 Appeals, Sony Files Main Proceeding

    The Quad9 Foundation fiercely opposed the injunction. The DNS resolver submitted an appeal to the Court hoping to overturn the blocking order, arguing that the decision sets a dangerous precedent.

    The non-profit foundation stressed that copyrights should be respected online, but believes that enforcing blocking measures through third-party intermediaries goes a step too far.

    The initial objection failed when the Regional Court in Hamburg upheld the blocking injunction. However, that was just a preliminary proceeding, and Quad9 was adamant it would continue the legal battle to prevent a broader impact on the Internet ecosystem.

    Quad9 isn’t alone in viewing this as a crucial matter; Sony does too, albeit for different reasons. The music company went on to initiate a main proceeding at the Leipzig court, the next step in the legal process where both sides would be able to present more evidence and expert opinions.

    Court Hears DNS Blocking Case

    The matter was heard yesterday at the regional court in Leipzig, where both sides were able to present their arguments. While a decision is still forthcoming, Quad9 reiterated the importance of the case. If Sony wins, Quad9 believes that more and broader blocking actions may follow.

    “Although this blocking applies only to Quad9’s services located in Germany, by bringing this court case to fruition, Sony Music — and those who may eventually follow — appear to be pushing the idea that they are above and beyond the principles of freedom, decentralization, and proportionality,” the DNS provider writes .

    Quad9 argues that it’s merely passing on metadata; it doesn’t store or transfer any content. It’s in the best interests of the public at large to keep DNS resolvers universally accessible, and any curation should be done in the best interests of users, not corporations.

    That last part could be relevant; Quad9 has positioned itself as a secure DNS resolver that gives users the option to block millions of malware-related connections and websites. In this case, however, it believes that court-ordered piracy blockades are not in the public interest.

    “Recursive DNS is not an effective or reasonable place to impose external policies that are undesired or unrequested by the end user,” Quad9 notes.

    “The ability of corporate entities to impose their will on unrelated third parties such as DNS resolution services creates a chilling effect which will reduce free information exchange, and introduces a significant risk of overreach and abuse against which there is little recourse.”

    Expert Contrasts Key Piracy Cases

    The DNS resolver is supported by the German Society for Freedom Rights (GFF), which commissioned Prof. Dr. Ruth Janal to prepare an expert opinion. The report concludes that intermediaries such as Quad9 should’t be held liable for third-party copyright infringement.

    According to the professor, Sony Music’s arguments and the lower court’s decision equate the DNS resolver to content hosting platforms such as YouTube and Uploaded, whereas Quad9 is more akin to a mere conduit service, in the sense that it simply passes on bits.

    Germany’s Federal Court previously ruled that hosting services can indeed be held liable for copyright infringement (e.g. YouTube/Uploaded ) but the same logic shouldn’t apply to a DNS provider, Professor Janal argues.

    As a mere conduit service, courts could require Quad9 to take action through a “no-fault” injunction, a process that’s already used in ISP blocking orders. In those cases, however, the intermediary isn’t held liable for pirating users.

    Specifically, a recent court order in Germany concerning Sci-Hub clarified that these types of blockades are only warranted if all other options have been exhausted. That includes going after a website’s hosting provider.

    ‘Sony Should Go After the Hosting Company’

    GFF project coordinator Felix Reda , who previously served as a Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, notes that Sony failed to go after the hosting company in this case.

    “Crucially, Sony did not seek an injunction against the EU-based hosting provider of the website at issue in its lawsuit against Quad9 either,” Reda informs TorrentFreak.

    “The expert opinion by Prof. Ruth Janal finds that clearly, Quad9 is a type of mere conduit service like ISPs and must therefore be treated on the basis of the rules of no-fault injunctions, which only allow DNS blocking if all options to bring the infringement to an end at the source have been exhausted,” Reda adds.

    The music company is yet to publicly share its view on the case. Sony and other rightsholders will likely put forward their own expert reports arguing that blocking is both warranted and reasonable.

    High Stakes

    There is no denying that the stakes are high in this case. Quad9 and GFF fear that if DNS providers can be held liable rather than there being “no-fault”, they may choose not to oppose blocking requests going forward.

    “If DNS services were treated as wrongdoers, the financial risk of opposing a blocking request would be so high that they would have little other choices than to comply with any blocking request without taking the issue to court,” Reda says.

    While there can be good reasons to block a site, doing so with court oversight helps to prevent over-blocking by considering the rights of service providers, copyright holders, and the general public.

    For their part, rightsholders believe that third-party intermediaries should take responsibility. When DNS providers risk being held liable, action is guaranteed.

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      DNS Resolver Quad9 Continues to Fight Pirate Site Blocking Demands

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Tuesday, 13 September, 2022 - 06:55 · 2 minutes

    quad9 Last year, Sony Music obtained an injunction that orders DNS resolver Quad9 to block a popular pirate site.

    The injunction, issued by the District Court of Hamburg, required the Swiss DNS resolver to block access to a site that links to pirated music.

    The name of the targeted site wasn’t revealed, but we deduced that Canna.to was the target. That site was also targeted by a voluntary blocking agreement previously signed by rightsholders and ISPs.

    Quad9 Appealed Site Blocking Injunction

    The Quad9 foundation fiercely opposed the injunction. The DNS resolver submitted an appeal to the Court hoping to overturn the blocking order, arguing that the decision set a dangerous precedent.

    The foundation stressed that it doesn’t condone piracy but believes that enforcing blocking measures through third-party intermediaries goes a step too far.

    This initial objection failed, as the Regional Court in Hamburg upheld the blocking injunction last December . However, this was only a preliminary proceeding and Quad9 promised to continue the legal battle, as it could have a broad impact on the Internet ecosystem.

    Sony Files Main Proceeding

    After Quad9 maintained the pressure, Sony has now initiated a main proceeding at the Leipzig court. This is the next step in the legal process and allows both sides to provide more evidence and expert opinions.

    “This is important as additional evidence, such as via witnesses or expert opinions can be utilized, which is not typical in the preliminary proceeding where we have previously only filed our own affidavits,” Quad9 explains .

    This extra evidence is now being filed with the court which has yet to schedule a hearing. It is clear, however, that the verdict of the Leipzig court is going to be very important, whichever way it goes.

    A Threat to Other Internet Players?

    Quad9 fears that if Sony prevails, the blocking demands will soon expand to other sites. In addition, rightsholders could request similar blocking measures from other DNS resolvers and other intermediaries.

    “In the event that Quad9 does not prevail, a very dangerous precedent could be set, potentially threatening many more layers of the internet model, which reaches up towards the user and downwards to the root (of the namespace).

    “The implications of the case go beyond DNS providers. Anti-virus software providers, firewall operators, and a host of other components in the ‘internet stack,’ in all networks, look identical to Quad9 when viewed as a simplified structural communication diagram,” Quad9 adds.

    Support?

    Thus far Quad9 has only relied on its own arguments in court but the main proceeding provides more room for other companies and experts to join in as well.

    With all the uncertainty surrounding the site blocking question, Quad9 appears to indirectly call on support from other key Internet players who could be affected by the ruling in the future.

    In any case, the company maintains that it shouldn’t be the role of DNS resolvers to block access to websites, whether these blockades are mandated by a court or not.

    “It is our firm belief that recursive DNS services are the wrong place to apply such blocks, and that this case endangers more than just Quad9 or our users’ interests – it risks cracking the foundations of a free and open internet, in Europe and worldwide,” the company concludes.

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.