New House Bill Could Force VPNs and ISPs to Block Anime and Manga Piracy Sites

A newly introduced House bill is reigniting one of the internet’s oldest battles—and this time, VPN providers could be pulled into the crossfire.

H.R. 10364, titled the American Copyright Protection Act of 2026, was introduced September 14 by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Judiciary subcommittee on intellectual property and the internet. The bill now sits with the House Judiciary Committee.

The legislation establishes a two-part judicial mechanism. A copyright holder would first ask a court to designate a site as a “foreign piracy site.” Once that designation is granted, the holder could pursue a second order requiring network operators to block U.S. access to the site.

The threshold for that initial designation is relatively low—petitioners would only need to demonstrate, by a preponderance of the evidence, that a site is primarily built for piracy. Blocking orders would come with a default 14-day response window for service providers, though that timeline could shrink for time-sensitive content like live sports.

The blocking mandate would extend beyond internet service providers to include domain name resolution services and VPN providers with at least 100,000 monthly U.S. users or subscribers. That last provision has become the flashpoint of the debate, since it would cover many of the mainstream VPN apps anime and manga fans use for geo-unlocking simulcasts or reaching piracy mirrors.

Critics argue the bill’s reach goes far beyond U.S. borders. Re:Create and other advocacy groups warn that routing blocking orders through global DNS resolvers could let a single American court effectively sever worldwide access to a site.

Re:Create executive director Brandon Butler put it bluntly: “The American Copyright Protection Act of 2026 is anything but American.”

Public Knowledge’s Meredith Rose was equally direct, saying Congress and its entertainment industry allies have “decided to build out a sweeping infrastructure for censorship” rather than pursuing the people actually operating overseas piracy operations.

Advocates also point to collateral damage—DNS and IP-based blocking can inadvertently take down legitimate sites that share domains, IP addresses, or hosting infrastructure with a piracy target. Smaller fan sites, aggregators, and community forums could get caught in the net.

Site-blocking legislation has been attempted before. Rep. Zoe Lofgren introduced the Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act in January 2025, and a bipartisan Senate proposal called the Block BEARD Act is also in the works, backed by Blackburn, Coons, Schiff, and Tillis. For longtime internet observers, H.R. 10364 echoes the SOPA and PIPA battles of 2012.

The bill’s final text hasn’t been officially published, and questions remain about how wrongly-blocked sites would be handled. The circulating draft does carve out exemptions for root nameserver operators, top-level-domain registries, and many premises-based Wi-Fi networks.

For anime and manga fans who rely on VPNs to access unofficial sources, this bill represents a potential seismic shift. Whether it advances or stalls like its predecessors, the conversation around site-blocking is far from over.

Source: Trash Kitty Comics