The Court of Justice of Paris has set the precedent for France's first anti-digital piracy laws by ordering Cloudflare to implement specific blocking measures to prevent the illegal transmission of MotoGP 2025. The ruling, issued on March 28, recognizes Cloudflare's triple role as an alternative DNS resolution provider, content distribution network (CDN), and reverse proxy service for the first time in France, setting a key precedent in the fight against audiovisual piracy.
The court decision comes at the behest of the Canal+ group, which reported repeated violations of intellectual property rights related to the unauthorized broadcasting of the motorcycle championship. In response, the court has ordered Cloudflare to apply DNS blocks, suspend its CDN service, and disable the reverse proxy for the infringing sites.
In addition, the ruling contemplates dynamic blocking measures in coordination with the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (ARCOM), which will allow the restrictions to be adapted to new pirate sites that have yet to be identified.
The ruling reinforces Cloudflare's interpretation as a technical intermediary that, according to French law, can mitigate infringements of audiovisual rights. The ruling also states that the company failed to demonstrate that the measures imposed are unfeasible or economically disproportionate, thus rejecting its request to limit them.
The judge also stressed that Cloudflare's reverse proxy service acts as a shield between users and the servers hosting the infringing content, facilitating illegal transmission.
This ruling aligns with the Digital Services Act (DSA) of the European Union and reinforces the growing judicial trend of extending technology platforms' responsibility in the fight against online piracy.
Cloudflare has faced similar decisions in other countries for its alleged lack of cooperation in the fight against piracy. This ruling in France strengthens the legal framework for protecting intellectual property rights in the digital environment and could influence future court decisions inside and outside the European Union.
The US company is expected to respond to the court decision in the coming days, while the audiovisual sector celebrates this new milestone in protecting its online content.
