In LaLiga’s fight against illegal soccer broadcasts, there is not only websites of websites dedicated to this type of broadcasts, but also shared IPS blockades that are affecting thousands of legitimate companies.
This same scenario was lived in Italy just a year ago, when its regulator, AGCom, implemented the “Piracy Shield”, a system that ended up demonstrating the risks of this type of blockades.
Between bambalins. The Italian case started in the summer of 2023, with the approval of the aforementioned “Piracy Shield“, But the real problems began in February 2024, when the first mass blockages caused thousands of legitimate websites, including nothing less than Google Drivethey will be inaccessible. A situation that is now familiar to us: here is Github who is inaccessible.
The IPS blocked then belonged mainly to Cloudflare, Zenlayer and Google (hence the of Drive), causing A domino effect similar to that now suffers from Spain.
In figures. The current impact on Spain is being considerable: more than 50% of IPS that distribute LaLiga content without a license are housed in Cloudflare, according to the employer of Spanish professional football. “Those are the worst,” said his president Javier Tebas about Cloudflare a few months ago in an interview with Jordi Wild (minute 13:10).
LaLiga, in fact, has just announced the blockade of two platforms, Dazcfutbolios and RBTV77, which added more than 400,000 unique users in Spain.
- LaLiga insists that she has made several requirements prior to Cloudflare before reaching the current situation. “We have made permanent requirements to Cloudflare before before any blockade without obtaining a chord answer,” Sources of LaLiga explain.
The contrast:
- While in Italy the initiative started from a public regulator (AGCOM) …
- … in Spain it is being led by a private entity (LaLiga).
This makes a notable difference in execution: in Italy there was a specific regulatory framework, while in Spain it acts Under the umbrella of a judicial judgment of 2022 which authorizes the “dynamic blockages.” However, LaLiga emphasizes judicial support for blockages of recent days.
Turning point. The situation has reached such an extent that LaLiga has enabled an email mailbox (affectedcloudflare@laliga.es) so that affected companies can report damage.
It is an implicit way of recognizing this great collateral impact, although the organization insists that the responsibility is cloudflare for “using legal companies as a digital shield.” That is, he considers that the decision to assign shared IPS to all types of services is their way of protecting those LaLiga pursues.
Voltage focus. The conflict has intensified with a crossing of accusations between LaLiga and Cloudflare that has intensified. Technology accuses LaLiga of acting deliberately knowing that it would affect “millions of consumers.” The statement sent to Xataka by Cloudflare a few days ago:
«Although LaLiga perfectly understood that blocking Shared IP addresses would affect the rights of millions of consumers to access hundreds of thousands of websites that do not violate the law, LaLiga continued with said blockade. This seems to reflect the erroneous belief that their commercial interests must prevail over the rights of millions of consumers to access an open internet ».
And LaLiga’s replica, which denounces that Cloudflare “profit from illegal activities.”
«Given the statements of Cloudflare to Xataka, LaLig legal as a digital shield to protect criminal organizations and mafias ».
“LaLiga has repeatedly required Cloudflare to stop this complicit activity with criminal organizations, which threaten intellectual property and incur multiple criminal activities such as the violation of intellectual property, all kinds of scams and pornography, without a favorable response.”
“Thus, LaLiga is not positioned against free access to the Internet, but requests measures and carries out controlled actions against companies or organizations that profit from illegal and criminal acts using legal companies as a digital shield.”
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