OpenDNS, the Cisco-owned DNS resolver, has switched off its service in Belgium, seemingly as a result of a web-blocking order secured by DAZN, the sports streaming platform owned by the biggest shareholder in Warner Music, Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries.
Cisco had already withdrawn OpenDNS from the French market following an earlier web-blocking injunction secured by the broadcaster Canal+.
Web-blocking has long been an anti-piracy tactic of choice for the music, movie and media industries. Copyright owners initially secure injunctions ordering internet service providers to block their users from accessing copyright infringing websites.
One way for consumers to circumvent the ISP blocks is to use an alternative DNS resolver, like OpenDNS. That fact has prompted copyright owners to start seeking injunctions against the DNS resolvers too.
Both Sony Music and Universal Music have been involved in such legal action. Meanwhile, last year Canal+ secured web-blocking orders against three DNS resolvers, OpenDNS plus services operated by Google and Cloudflare. DAZN’s legal action in Belgium targeted the same three companies.
Pretty much all the targeted DNS resolvers have been critical of attempts by the copyright industries to force them to block domains. Especially Quad9, which was targeted by Sony in Germany and Canal+ in France, and which said that forcing DNS resolvers to block domains was “an absurd application of copyright law” that risks “breaking” internet systems “that work well”.
Cisco confirmed that OpenDNS is no longer available in Belgium in a short statement on its website last weekend. It didn’t specifically reference the DAZN legal action, simply stating that “due to a court order in Belgium issued under Article XVII.34./1 of the Code Of Economic Law, the OpenDNS service is not currently available to users in Belgium. We apologise for the inconvenience”.
That article of Belgium’s Code Of Economic Law says that courts can “issue an interim order” against “any intermediary whose services are used” by other parties to instigate a “clear and significant infringement of copyright”.
The web-blocking injunction secured in the Brussels Enterprise Court by DAZN ordered the three DNS resolvers to block more than 130 domains associated with sports piracy. The sports platform said that the court order was a “first of its kind” in Belgium and “a real step forward” in the battle against online piracy within the country.