We have bad news and worse news. The bad thing is that condemnation of the indiscriminate blocking of LaLiga IPs continues to occur more than a year later. The bad thing is that probably go more. Above all, after the agreement that LaLiga has reached with Fastly.
what has happened. LaLiga yesterday announced an agreement with the company Fastly, a direct competitor of Cloudflare in the market “edge cloud“. Both provide CDN and content acceleration services as well as web security, but their philosophies are different. While one has become a great defender of the privacy of its clients and users, the other has teamed up with LaLiga to help it in this crusade against the broadcasts of football matches on IPTV platforms. In reality LaLiga He already made a similar move a year ago.
AI to detect illegal emissions. According to the announcement, Fastly “has developed a smart, targeted detection system that leverages AI and content signals from owners to identify illegal broadcasts in near real-time.” This solution, they say in LaLiga, will allow the elimination of “illegal content (…) with greater precision and drastically reducing the scope for piracy.”
The glitch that makes speed everything. The data from the Grant Thornton study cited in the press release are revealing: in 2024 at least 10.8 million unauthorized retransmissions were detected, 81% without broadcast suspension, and only 2.7% addressed in less than thirty minutes. An illegal issue of this type has a very short window of value. If it is not removed within the first few minutes, the damage has already been done.
AI to detect… and a hammer to block? The system that Fastly has created promises surgical detection of these IPTV broadcasts, but there are no details or evidence that it actually fulfills that promise. The real question will then be another: if this detection information will end up contributing to the massive and indiscriminate blocking of IPs being even more massive and indiscriminate, or if it will improve that precision. It does not seem likely, because shared IPs are still the root of the problem: when LaLiga orders to block a Cloudflare IP, in reality that IP is shared by dozens, hundreds or even thousands of websites. Knocking down the guilty makes many innocent people They are punished again and again.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. LaLiga has been trying to force Cloudflare to collaborate for years through judicial means. That has had legal costs, collateral damage and a public relations battle that has clearly impacted the organization’s reputation. The alternative sought is to go to someone who precisely understands perfectly how the segment in which Cloudflare operates works. Not only that, if successful, Fastly may end up attracting other leagues and television producers from around the world. The real solution would probably be another.
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