BitTorrent blocking: TorGuard VPN’s firewall nixes torrents on US servers

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VPN operator TorGuard has agreed to block BitTorrent traffic on its US-based servers to settle a piracy lawsuit filed by a variety of companies that own movie copyrights.

"Pursuant to a confidential settlement agreement, Plaintiffs have requested, and Defendant has agreed to use, commercially reasonable efforts to block BitTorrent traffic on its servers in the United States using firewall technology," according to a joint stipulation filed on March 3 by plaintiffs and defendant VPNetworks, which does business under the name TorGuard. The plaintiffs' claims against TorGuard "are hereby dismissed with prejudice, each party to bear its own costs and attorneys' fees," said the filing in US District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

TorGuard says it operates VPN servers in 50 countries, so its users can presumably still use BitTorrent by connecting to a non-US server. Though torrenting is widely used for piracy, the peer-to-peer technology is also used for the legal distribution of files such as Linux ISOs and many types of content on the Internet Archive.

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