The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry
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There’s something a little surreal about watching a modern internet dispute hinge on where a company’s legal address happens to be. One minute it’s about protecting minors, the next it’s about jurisdictional lines drawn decades ago. And suddenly, adult websites are at the center of a European legal chess match.
A German court has now blocked the Rhineland-Palatinate Media Authority from forcing telecom providers within its jurisdiction to cut off access to Aylo-owned adult sites Pornhub and YouPorn.
According to a statement released Thursday by the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Justice, the Administrative Court of Neustadt an der Weinstraße sided with both internet access provider 1&1 and Aylo, overturning blocking orders previously issued by the media authority.
Those orders, handed down in April 2024, required DNS blocking of the sites on the grounds that they lacked sufficient age verification measures to prevent minors in Germany from accessing adult content, as mandated by the country’s Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media (JMStV). Both Aylo and 1&1 challenged the orders in court, arguing they overstepped legal boundaries.
The court’s 5th Chamber agreed, grounding its decision in two key points: the primacy of the European Union’s Digital Services Act over Germany’s JMStV, and the EU’s long-standing “country of origin” principle under the Directive on Electronic Commerce. Under that framework, online services are generally regulated only by the EU member state in which they are legally based — and Aylo is based in Cyprus.
The Ministry of Justice emphasized that since the Digital Services Act took effect in February 2024, there has been “a single, fully harmonized set of rules at EU level for the protection of minors in online media.”
“This regulation generally prohibits member states from imposing additional national requirements in areas already covered by the regulation,” the statement reads. “As the DSA already stipulates comprehensive due diligence obligations for online platforms to protect minors, it supersedes the previous German special regulations.”
It also pointed out that the European Commission has already asserted exclusive authority by launching its own proceedings against Pornhub and other platforms designated as “Very Large Online Platforms” under the DSA. In other words, Brussels is already on the case.
That likely won’t be the end of it. The Rhineland-Palatinate Media Authority is expected to appeal the ruling to the Higher Administrative Court of Rhineland-Palatinate — especially given that this same court previously ruled against Aylo in earlier blocking disputes.
And that’s where things get messy. Different German courts have reached different conclusions, and the supposed clarity between national and EU law isn’t as airtight as this ruling might suggest.
Last September, an advocate general at the EU’s Court of Justice issued a nonbinding opinion in a separate case involving WebGroup Czech Republic, which operates XVideos.com, and NKL Associates, which operates XNXX.com. That opinion suggested France could, in fact, require pornographic websites based in other EU countries to comply with French age verification laws. Not binding, but certainly eyebrow-raising.
However the Pornhub and YouPorn litigation ultimately plays out in Germany, it’s almost guaranteed to ripple outward. This isn’t just about a couple of adult sites or a regional regulator flexing its muscles. It’s about where authority really lives in a digital Europe — and who gets the final word when national instincts collide with EU-wide rules.
