Walk the Plank: Piracy Sites and the Push for Site-Blocking in the U.S.

[1] 

Resurgence of Digital Piracy 

Have you noticed yourself paying for more streaming subscriptions every year?[2] Have you noticed the price increases?[3] Subscription fatigue is only one factor contributing to digital piracy.[4] If you have ever tried to stream a movie on a questionable website filled with pop-up advertisements, you have seen the problem first-hand.[5] Millions of Americans tune into these illegal streaming portals every day.[6] These illegal sites stay well out of reach of United States law enforcement by hiding behind anonymous domains and hosting their servers in foreign countries.[7]

For decades, the U.S. has relied on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) to send takedown notices whenever copyrighted material pops up online.[8] The DMCA is a federal law that protects the rights of copyright online while ensuring cooperative internet service providers (“ISPs”) were not persecuted under secondary liability.[9] This compromise took the form of "safe harbor" provisions, where internet intermediaries are protected from their users' copyright infringements if they cooperate with copyright holders, most commonly through notice-and-takedown frameworks.[10] Despite these anti-piracy initiatives, Hollywood studios maintain that the system cannot keep up.[11] Today, over eighty percent of digital video piracy is from streaming where copies of movies and television are available in real time, making traditional DMCA notices outdated.[12] According to industry estimates, digital piracy costs the entertainment industry upwards of $75 billion each year, with more than 229 billion visits in 2023 alone.[13]

Push for Site-Blocking

Consequently, U.S. lawmakers are introducing statutory reforms to establish judicial site-blocking.[14] Representative Darrell Issa introduced the American Copyright Protection Act (“ACPA”), a bill specifically designed to help rights holders fast-track site-blocking orders.[15] If passed into law, copyright owners could petition a judge to force ISPs to completely cut off U.S. access to target foreign sites.[16] Issa’s bill isn't the only one either; it joins similar proposals like Representative Zoe Lofgren’s Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act (”FADPA”) and the bipartisan Senate Block Bad Electronic Art and Recording Distributors Act (”Block BEARD Act“).[17]

Assigned to the House Committee on the Judiciary in January 2025, FADPA aims to establish a process for copyright owners to file a petition for issuance of a preliminary blocking order for foreign websites and ISPs engaging in copyright infringement.[18] Unlike ACPA's streamlined approach, FADPA requires petitioners to serve the ISP in accordance with Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“FRCP”), a difficult feat for anonymous, foreign defendants.[19] Announced in July 2025, the Block BEARD Act aims to expand the scope of petitioning for preliminary blocking orders in FADPA by including search engines, social media networks, and other digital platforms.[20] However, unlike FADPA, it utilizes a "reasonable effort" notice standard in notifying foreign operators.[21] It also has not yet been assigned to the House Committee.[22]

To understand why these site-blocking bills were introduced, one must also look at the mounting pressure within U.S. courtrooms over ISP liability.[23] A significant catalyst of this shift is the landmark copyright litigation case, Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications, Inc.[24] As Justice Sotomayor mentioned in her concurrence, the Cox decision undermined Congress’ balanced framework.[25] Major record labels sued Cox, one of the nation's largest broadband providers, attempting to hold it contributorily liable for users downloading pirated music on its network.[26] Cox was denied protection under the DMCA safe harbors because courts found its policy for terminating repeat infringers inadequate.[27] However, since Cox neither induced users' infringement nor provided a service tailored to infringement, the Supreme Court found that Cox is not contributorily liable for infringement of Sony’s copyrights.[28] The erosion of secondary liability for ISPs marks a decision that leaves copyright holders with fewer legal remedies.[29]

Jointly with site-blocking legislation, Congress is pushing the NO FAKES Act (S. 4591 / H.R. 8915), a sweeping bipartisan bill designed to create a federal intellectual property right in an individual’s voice and visual likeness.[30] This is mainly to combat unauthorized AI deepfakes.[31] Together, the ACPA and the NO FAKES Act establish clear statutory standards against infringers.[32] Under the ACPA, a court evaluates whether a site qualifies as a foreign piracy entity by determining if it operates overseas out of reach of U.S. law enforcement and has "only limited commercially significant purpose" beyond copyright infringement.[33] Once a judge issues a site-blocking order, ISPs are legally obligated to take reasonable technical steps to halt U.S. user access to the targeted domains.[34] Additionally, these site-blocking frameworks include procedural safeguards, such as enabling erroneously blocked sites to seek damages up to $250,000 for wrongful blocking.[35]

Looking to Europe’s Site-Blocking History

Compared to the U.S., site-blocking has been far more widespread across Europe for over a decade.[36] Globally, more than fifty countries allow pirate website blocking, with thirty-nine actively enforcing court orders against foreign operators.[37] Europe’s site-blocking framework is rooted in Article 8(3) of the EU Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC), which grants preliminary site-blocking orders.[38] The Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) has repeatedly affirmed the legitimacy of blocking orders as an effective remedy.[39] In Portugal, site-blocking orders resulted in a seventy percent decrease in traffic to targeted pirate websites, while Australia saw a twenty-five percent overall reduction in digital piracy within a single year.[40]

As the frameworks in the proposed U.S. bills attempt to model the European process, digital rights advocates frequently cite European overblocking incidents to emphasize the risks of fast-tracked judicial blocking.[41] Public Knowledge Senior Policy Counsel, Meredith Rose, stresses that such orders put small businesses and nonprofits most at risk.[42] For example, broad domain-level blocks implemented in Spain to target illegal streams of LaLiga sports matches temporarily severed access to non-infringing websites across nearly six percent of the popular internet.[43] Domains taken down included pages hosted by Harvard University and Greenpeace.[44] Similarly, automated blocking systems in Italy regularly block innocent websites for an average of 320 days.[45]

Why the Rush?

Following landmark Supreme Court developments around ISP liability such as Cox, media companies feel they can no longer rely on courts to hold internet providers accountable.[46] The Motion Picture Association, which includes member studios like Amazon Studios, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers, is endorsing Issa’s bill.[47] They point out that over fifty democratic nations around the globe already block piracy domains without breaking the internet.[48]

There’s no need to look far to see how similar legal mechanisms play out in the real world.[49] Canada, for example, shows how the Federal Court and judicial orders can adapt to evolving piracy networks in Bell Media Inc. v. John Doe 1 (Soap2Day).[50] The plaintiffs, including Bell Media Inc. and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., filed and served a motion for an interlocutory injunction for the deactivation of the online piracy platform Soap2Day.[51] Additionally, John Does 1 to 4, the individuals behind Soap2Day, were ordered to pay over $22 million to the plaintiffs, forcing ISPs to block any existing Soap2Day websites and any future copycats.[52] The Federal Court judge described the growing trend of copycat sites promptly replacing deactivated infringing platforms as a "whack-a-mole" battle.[53] As piracy platforms become more inventive and resourceful, content providers such as Netflix, Bell Media, and Disney have sought to fight them with increasingly more flexible court injunctions.[54] Rather than require copyright holders to begin separate legal proceedings for every new mirror website, the Canadian ruling established a process where rights holders can quickly add new URLs and IP addresses to the blocklist as soon as clone sites pop up.[55] For content creators, having this kind of agile response is the only way to stop pirate networks from constant evasion.[56]

Controversy

Despite strong industry support, these measures face sharp resistance from digital rights advocates.[57] The issue over ACPA is not over shutting down piracy sites, but the risk of overreach.[58] Digital rights advocacy groups like Re:Create and Public Knowledge warn that mandatory site-blocking poses a serious threat.[59] The actual language of Representative Issa’s H.R. 10364 bill creates an aggressive legal shortcut by letting media conglomerates bypass traditional lawsuits.[60] Alternatively, they go straight to court to order ISPs to erase foreign domains from the internet.[61] Instead of attacking the source and bringing the people running overseas piracy websites to court, instant site-blocking could create a slippery slope toward broader internet censorship.[62]

As Congress balances site-blocking frameworks against mounting digital piracy and a post-Cox era, U.S. copyright enforcement stands at a critical crossroads. The challenge for lawmakers moving forward will be crafting remedies that establish a more accountable internet without compromising due process and free speech.

 References

[1] Photo by Jose Ortiz, Historic Wooden Sailing Ship at Sea During Sunset, with Calm Water, Soft Light and a Dramatic Silhouette Against the Horizon, Unsplash (Apr. 9, 2026), https://unsplash.com/photos/a-tall-ship-sails-on-the-ocean-at-sunset-AYVdh4hYfOg.

[2] See Ben Christensen, Digital Piracy Is on the Rise and the Entertainment Industry Is Losing Billions, Yahoo Ent. (May 16, 2026, 13:15 PM EDT), https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/digital-piracy-rise-entertainment-industry-171541152.html.

[3] See id.

[4] See id.

[5] See id.

[6] See id.

[7] See id.

[8] See Keith Kupferschmid, The Real-World Implications of the Supreme Court's Cox Decision, IPWatchdog (June 18, 2026, 12:36 ET), https://ipwatchdog.com/2026/06/18/real-world-implications-supreme-courts-cox-decision/.

[9] See id.

[10] See id.

[11] See Statement of the Motion Picture Association Before the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, Motion Picture Ass’n (June 29, 2026), https://www.motionpictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/MPA-HJC-Piracy-Hearing-Statement-FINAL-6.29.26.pdf.

[12] See International Copyright Invalidation and Enforcement: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Cts., Intell. Prop., and the Internet of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 118th Cong. (2023), https://www.congress.gov/118/chrg/CHRG-118hhrg54399/CHRG-118hhrg54399.pdf.

[13] See Christensen, supra note 2.

[14] See Eileen McDermott, Groups Slam Issa Bill to Expedite Site Blocking Orders, IPWatchdog (Sep. 16, 2026, 13:16 ET), https://ipwatchdog.com/2026/09/16/groups-slam-issa-bill-to-expedite-site-blocking-orders/.

[15] See Press Release, Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman Issa Introduces American Copyright Protection Act to Combat Online Piracy (Sep. 15, 2026), https://issa.house.gov/media/press-releases/chairman-issa-introduces-american-copyright-protection-act-combat-online.

[16] See id.

[17] See id.

[18] See McDermott, supra note 14.

[19] See Jen Nacht, From Testimony to Action: Proposed Legislation to Address Issues Raised by Rights Owners During Recent House Hearing, IPWatchdog (Aug. 18, 2026, 11:15 ET), https://ipwatchdog.com/2026/08/18/testimony-action-proposed-legislation-address-issues-raised-rights-owners-during-recent-house-hearing/.

[20] See id.

[21] See id.

[22] See id.

[23] See id.

[24] See Kupferschmid, supra note 8.

[25] See Cox Commc’ns, Inc. v. Sony Music Ent., 607 U.S. 583 (2026).

[26] See id. at 587.

[27] See id. at 587.

[28] See id. at 596.

[29] See id. at 595.

[30] See Nacht, supra note 8.

[31] See id.

[32] See American Copyright Protection Act of 2026, H.R. 10364, 119th Cong. § 2 (2026), https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/10364/text.

[33] See id. § 1602(b)(5)(B).

[34] See id. § 1604(d)(3).

[35] See id. § 1606(f)(6).

[36] See Kupferschmid, supra note 8.

[37] See id.

[38] See id.

[39] See How European Site-Blocking Orders Work and Why They're Effective, Remove Your Media (Mar. 27, 2026), https://removeyourmedia.com/2026/03/27/how-european-site-blocking-orders-work-and-why-theyre-effective/ (last visited Oct. 23, 2026).

[40] See id.

[41] See World Intell. Prop. Org. [WIPO], Advisory Comm. on Enf't, Sharing Experiences and Best Practices on Site Blocking/No-Fault Injunctions, WIPO 4-5 (Jan. 30, 2025), https://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/enforcement/en/wipo_ace_17/wipo_ace_17_14_prov.pdf.

[42] See McDermott, supra note 14.

[43] See id.

[44] See id.

[45] See id.

[46] See Chairman Issa Introduces American Copyright Protection Act to Combat Online Piracy, supra note 15.

[47] See Kupferschmid, supra note 8.

[48] See id.

[49] See M. Imtiaz Karamat, Unique Site-Blocking Order Explained by Federal Court, Deeth Williams Wall (Feb. 5, 2025), https://www.dww.com/articles/unique-siteblocking-order-explained-by-federal-court.

[50] See id.

[51] See Copycat Websites Targeted in 'Whack-a-Mole' Battle with Pirate “Soap2Day” Streamers, Yahoo News (Jan. 30, 2025, 08:00 EST), https://ca.news.yahoo.com/copycat-websites-targeted-whack-mole-130000515.html.

[52] See id.

[53] See id.

[54] See id.

[55] See Karamat, supra note 49.

[56] See id.

[57] See McDermott, supra note 14.

[58] See id.

[59] See id.

[60] See American Copyright Protection Act, supra note 33.

[61] See id.

[62] See id.