Such censorship is passed by elected legislators, interpreted by an independent judiciary, and subject to appeal (which NordVPN has already begun). From a procedural standpoint, that is democracy. But it ignores liberty, proportionality and limits on power.
Democratic erosion is how governments today expand surveillance, blocking and platform obligations while still technically obeying democratic rules
Founding documents don't do shit. What one needs is a culture which is perpetually hostile towards power. All problems of power are social problems. No law, founding document, principle is going to prevent people from doing stuff if they want to do it.
> I assume the majority of IPs being pirated are likely from outside their own country
Ever heard of Ligue 1, home to teams like PSG, Olympique de Marseille, Olympique Lyonnais, and AS Monaco, and superstars like Mbappe, Dembélé, and Hakimi? French viewers also watch Spanish, Italian, Belgian, German, and English football/soccer as well.
"All VPN providers, except ProtonVPN, appeared in court to argue a defense. They raised various arguments, with the “no-log” defense from Surfshark and NordVPN standing out."
Why, because American companies are never forced to do things because of copyright and/or law enforcement?
Kim Dotcom become filthy rich by selling access to copyrighted materials and turned into folk hero of the alt-right. He was selling other peoples work per the kilobyte when kids were persecuted for copyright infringement, videos taken down for using a few second of music or a clip from another video . That is not a fair system.
Cory Doctorow was talking about it recently. https://youtu.be/3C1Gnxhfok0?si=OzjYwL16yLzQUwuY
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/wireStory/spanish-soccer...
ISP-level censorship is extremely rare in the US. Copyright and piracy is almost always handled by domain seizure ordered by a court, not ISP-level blocking (as is common in the EU).