EU top court rules geo-blocking sufficient and VPNs lawful technical tools

Sources: TorrentFreak, HN discussion
Summary: The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on 2026-07-09 in case C-788/24 (ECLI:EU:C:2026:559) that a publisher using state-of-the-art geo-blocking does not infringe copyright when a determined user bypasses the block with a VPN, holding that the mere possibility of circumvention cannot by itself make a technical protection measure inadequate. The court characterized VPN providers as neutral intermediaries and lawful technical tools that users may legitimately use, and said providers cannot be held liable because they do not give end users access to the protected work or play an indispensable role in its communication. The case arose from the Dutch Anne Frank Stichting publishing manuscripts that remain under copyright in the Netherlands until 2037 but are public domain elsewhere in the EU. The account resurfaced on Hacker News on 2026-07-22.
Why it matters: It fixes geo-blocking as a legally sufficient technical protection measure across the EU and removes VPN operators from the liability chain, which sets the compliance bar for any service that regionally gates content.