Hosting firm snags major court victory in content piracy case

A federal court in Florida has found web hosting company Quadranet not liable for piracy activities that VPN users carry out on its platform. 

After a court dismissed an earlier complaint with prejudice last year, a group of movie producers filed a motion against Quadranet and LiquidVPN over alleged copyright infringement. 

As Torrentfreak reported, Quadranet has now won its case and will not be required to make any changes to its service to guard against piracy. LiquidVPN, however, was found to have “intentionally induced and encouraged direct [copyright] infringement” and will have to pay over $14 million in damages.

VPN piracy battle

After suing a number of US-based internet service providers (ISPs) for not doing enough to tackle piracy, both the music and movie industries are now shifting their focus to VPN providers. 

As VPNs make people anonymous online, users sometimes use the service to mask their identity when illegally accessing or sharing copyright-protected content. It’s also very common to use a streaming VPN to bypass geo-restriction that platforms like Netflix apply to their catalogues. 

The movie industry is fighting against the services that explicitly promote the ability to access geo-restricted content, in breach of streaming providers’ breach terms of use. Surfshark, VPN Unlimited, Zenmate, and ExpressVPN are just some of the big names caught up in this copyright battle. 

As with the recent LiquidVPN case, movie producers are winning in court in some instances, while in other cases VPN providers have agreed to out of court settlements.

It remains to be seen whether this latest round of court action will define a new era for VPN providers where obligations surrounding piracy matters are concerned.

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Via TorrentFreak