{"id":1641933,"date":"2026-07-22T16:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itYou8rUUCPyZJLpSLN22B"},"modified":"2026-07-22T16:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:24:15","slug":"eu-court-rules-that-vpns-are-lawful-technical-tools-as-part-of-larger-copyright-judgement-regarding-the-diary-of-anne-frank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/eu-court-rules-that-vpns-are-lawful-technical-tools-as-part-of-larger-copyright-judgement-regarding-the-diary-of-anne-frank\/","title":{"rendered":"EU court rules that VPNs are ‘lawful technical tools’ as part of larger copyright judgement regarding The Diary of Anne Frank"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the highest courts in Europe has described VPNs as “lawful technical tools which users may legitimately use” in a landmark case. The Court of Justice of the European Union made this remark as part of a larger judgement regarding the online publication of The Diary of Anne Frank.<\/p>\n

The case in question is a complex legal dispute over copyright. As the July judgement explains<\/a>, the Anne Frank Fund will hold the rights to parts of the historical manuscripts until at least 2037. However, in some EU member states, such as Belgium, these works are in the public domain. The dispute centres on a Dutch translation of the diaries which was offered free online to users living in member states where the manuscripts had already entered the public domain\u2014though obviously, a VPN can get around location based restrictions (via Tech Radar<\/a>).<\/p>\n

At the risk of oversimplifying, the EU court had to rule whether the online publisher and host of the Dutch translation was liable for copyright infringement when users hopped the online fence via a VPN. The court essentially ruled no, setting a legal precedent along with it.<\/p>\n

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