Courts can now order ISPs to block foreign websites—with immunity from mistakes
H.R. 791 — Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act · Filed by Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) · Introduced Jan 28, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill creates a new legal mechanism allowing copyright owners to petition U.S. courts for orders that force internet service providers and domain name resolution services to block access to foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. Once a court issues a blocking order, ISPs and DNS providers must prevent their users from reaching the targeted site within 15–20 days (or 7 days for live events). The bill grants ISPs immunity from lawsuits by the blocked sites or their users, and by copyright owners for actions taken in good faith to comply.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a court-ordered blocking system targeting foreign piracy sites. While framed as copyright protection, it fundamentally shifts enforcement power from copyright holders suing infringers to ISPs and DNS providers acting as gatekeepers, with broad immunity from liability.
What the text implies
- ISPs gain immunity even when blocking orders are issued based on mistaken identification of a site, creating a one-way liability shield that may chill ISP scrutiny of blocking requests.
- The expedited ex parte process for live events (7-day compliance, possible same-day issuance) bypasses the foreign operator's right to contest the order, effectively allowing blocking without a hearing.
- DNS providers with >$100M annual revenue become de facto content gatekeepers, but the bill does not require them to publish blocking statistics or provide users with transparency about which sites are blocked.
- The bill exempts encrypted DNS and VPN services from the blocking requirement, creating a loophole that sophisticated users can exploit while ordinary users lose access.
- Service providers can recover 'reasonable marginal costs' from copyright owners, potentially creating a new revenue stream for ISPs and DNS providers and incentivizing aggressive blocking compliance.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens gain a potential remedy against foreign piracy sites, but lose the ability to access those sites through normal internet services and face reduced transparency about which sites are blocked and why. The immunity provisions shield ISPs from liability even if they block non-infringing content by mistake, and the expedited process for live events bypasses normal due-process safeguards.
Who stands to gain
- copyright owners and exclusive licensees
- major ISPs and broadband providers
- large DNS resolution service providers (>$100M revenue)
- entertainment and sports leagues
Named in the bill
U.S. District Courts, copyright owners, exclusive licensees, broadband providers, ISPs, DNS providers, foreign websites, live event operators, service providers, FCC (referenced in definitions)
Where it stands
- Jan 28, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 28, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
13 lobbying clients named this bill on 20 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $26,260,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 26 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 94% of bills with at least one filing.
Zoe Lofgren, the sponsor, reported $462,479 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle. $3,500 of that came from 1 PAC tied to these lobbying clients.
- Google Client Services LLC — $6,920,000 on 2 filings
- Charter Communications Inc — $5,020,000 on 2 filings
- Verizon Communications Inc and Various Subsidiaries — $3,050,000 on 1 filing
- Entertainment Software Association — $2,810,000 on 2 filings
- AT&T Services Inc and Its Affiliates — $2,650,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (20,556 characters) on Jul 25, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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