A regional court in Leipzig, Germany, has ordered DNS resolver Quad9 to block music piracy site Canna.to globally. The DNS resolver called the decision “absurdly extreme” and plans to appeal at the Dresden Court of Appeal.
Sony Music obtained an injunction from the District Court of Hamburg, ordering Quad9 to block Canna.to in 2021. The order required Quad9 to block users from accessing the site to prevent the download of pirated copies of Evanescence’s album “The Bitter Truth.”
The DNS resolver opposed the injunction at the Regional Court of Hamburg, TorrentFreak reported. It argued that it does not support piracy but insisted that blocking measures through an intermediary that does not host content is extreme.
Last December, the regional court in Hamburg upheld the blocking injunction, paving the way for Sony Music to proceed with the main proceedings at the regional court of Leipzig, where both parties were allowed to present evidence and expert opinions.
Sony referenced an earlier decision by a German Federal court that services like YouTube are liable for copyright infringement if they do not respond to complaints filed by copyright holders.
Quad9 said the verdict sets a bad precedent.
“Quad9 believes this is an exceptionally dangerous precedent that could lead to future global-reaching commercialized and political censorship if DNS blocking is applied globally without geographic limitations to certain jurisdictions,” Quad9 said.
