Quad9 to Exit France Following Court Fines Over Anti-Piracy Injunction

Swiss non-profit DNS resolver Quad9 will terminate its service across France on November 24, following an adverse ruling from the Paris Court over its refusal to filter unauthorized sports streaming domains.

The dispute stems from an anti-piracy injunction brought by broadcaster beIN Sports, which targeted 58 domains offering illicit tennis feeds. While beIN petitioned the court for punitive sanctions of up to €10,000 per domain each day, which could have amounted to €580,000 daily, the magistrate settled on a single daily fine of €1,000, according to reporting by TorrentFreak.

The penalty runs through the conclusion of the blocking mandate on November 14. Quad9 confirmed to TorrentFreak that it expects to incur approximately €24,000 in direct fines alongside its ongoing legal expenses, having opted to absorb the judgment rather than execute the requested domain-level blocks.

The Paris court noted that Quad9 made no attempt to comply with the underlying order. That stance distinguished Quad9 from intermediaries like Cloudflare and several commercial VPN operators, which avoided financial penalties earlier this month after demonstrating reasonable efforts to restrict access to flagged sites.

For major rights holders and sports broadcasters, the ruling highlights both the escalating reach of European digital enforcement and its operational limits. As Hollywood Tomorrow notes, when network providers choose market withdrawal over content moderation, rights owners still face significant hurdles in preventing consumer access to decentralized alternatives.