The Paris Judicial Court has rejected a request from Canal+ to impose daily financial penalties on Cloudflare for failing to block pirate sports streams via its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. The court ruled that Cloudflare's existing CDN-based blocking measures are reasonable and sufficient, affirming that the company is not required to interfere with its DNS service for piracy enforcement.
This ruling establishes a significant legal precedent for infrastructure providers by distinguishing between CDN-level intervention and DNS-level censorship. By labeling CDN blocking as a reasonable measure, the court allows Cloudflare to maintain the integrity of its 1.1.1.1 resolver while still complying with rightsholder demands. This decision provides a temporary shield for neutral internet utilities against aggressive financial penalties sought by broadcasters like Canal+ and beIN Sports. The outcome suggests that as long as intermediaries offer real-time mitigation tools for live streams, courts may resist forcing deeper architectural changes. Industry observers should monitor the upcoming Quad9 ruling later this month to see if this logic extends to non-profit DNS providers.
Cloudflare has faced escalating pressure from French rightsholders to intervene at the DNS layer, but the Paris court's October 2026 ruling distinguished between CDN-level takedown tools and DNS-level blocking, finding the former sufficient. The same legal campaign has already forced other DNS operators to comply. In December 2024, Canal+ secured court orders compelling DNS providers Quad9 and Vercara to block access to pirate streaming sites, and because Quad9 lacks geographic blocking capabilities, the Swiss-based resolver had to apply the blocks globally to all users regardless of location.
The enforcement wave against Cloudflare and other DNS resolvers traces back to Article 333-10 of France's Sports Code, which Canal+ and beIN Sports have used to petition the Paris Judicial Tribunal. In late September 2024, Canal+ petitioned the court to order DNS providers Google, Cloudflare, Quad9, and Vercara to block domains streaming sporting events without authorization, and the court issued its initial blocking order on December 5, 2024. Quad9's General Manager John Todd warned that such actions risk turning the internet into a "splinter-net" resembling DNS censorship practiced in authoritarian states.
The October 2026 Cloudflare ruling arrives as Quad9 faces a separate, more aggressive penalty demand. beIN Sports is seeking up to €580,000 per day against Quad9 for non-compliance with French piracy blocking orders, and the non-profit resolver is weighing a full exit from the French market. A May 2025 ruling in a related case showed the court's willingness to scrutinize rightsholder evidence: the Paris court rejected DNS piracy blocking bids from a beIN sister company after finding the complaint contained a wrong logo and insufficient proof of infringement, suggesting that procedural rigor may increasingly protect infrastructure providers from overbroad demands.
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