U.S. Senators Introduce New Pirate Site Blocking Bill: Block BEARD
U.S. Senators Thom Tillis (R‑NC), Chris Coons (D‑DE), Marsha Blackburn (R‑TN) and Adam Schiff (D‑CA) unveiled a draft version of the bipartisan Block Bad Electronic Art and Recording Distributors (Block BEARD) Act of 2025. The bill aims to empower copyright owners to petition U.S. federal courts to designate foreign websites as “foreign digital piracy sites,” thereby enabling courts to order U.S. service providers—including ISPs, search engines, DNS resolvers, and potentially VPNs—to block access to those sites within the United States .
Rightsholders seeking a blocking order must demonstrate tangible harm, show they attempted to notify the site operator, and confirm the site is primarily dedicated to piracy and not located in the U.S. If a site is designated, the court evaluates whether blocking is technically feasible and in the public interest. Blocking orders last one year and can be extended or amended to include new domains or IPs if the site relocates . Providers with fewer than 50,000 subscribers (e.g. cafés, libraries, universities) are exempt. Providers may contest inclusion and choose their own compliance methods. Notably, the bill includes no transparency or public notice requirements .
The proposal has received support from major rights-holder groups like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), who cite its resemblance to successful site-blocking frameworks already in place in more than 50 democratic nations. The Senate bill is also positioned as a companion to earlier House proposals such as the Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act (FADPA) .
