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Hacker News

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.

by phendrenad2

Hopefully this ruling adds to some precedent in favour of VPNs to future court battles attacking VPNs for circumventing age verification.

by EmbarrassedHelp

> The case centered on the copyright battle involving Anne Frank's diary

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.

by miki123211

If they can target us by IP for surveillance pricing etc. then we need VPN as a basic survival tool.

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.

by rubysprite

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.

by dzonga

Without robust copyright protection, what will incentivize Anne Frank to write more diary entries?

by kps

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.

by sebastiennight

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  • Hacker News
  • 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.
  • Hopefully this ruling adds to some precedent in favour of VPNs to future court battles attacking VPNs for circumventing age verification.
  • > The case centered on the copyright battle involving Anne Frank's diary

    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.

  • If they can target us by IP for surveillance pricing etc. then we need VPN as a basic survival tool.

    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.

  • EU posts about it:

    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...

  • 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.

  • Without robust copyright protection, what will incentivize Anne Frank to write more diary entries?
    by kps
  • 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.