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LaLiga's Anti-Piracy Crackdown Triggers Widespread Internet Disruptions in Spain

400 points by akyuu 1y ago

ragnarel 1y ago
A few months ago I cancelled my subscription to watch LaLiga. I won't pay a single euro to these tyrants who impose censorship on innocent people.
righthand 1y ago
Why do they not pay for streams? Is this a “cable sub cost is too high” or a “broadcasters want to blackout stream so only locals and the right networks can see the game” situation? EDIT: “One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue,” explained Newell [0] [0] https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-not-price/ https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-...
- ACCount37 1y ago
  It really doesn't matter. The issue isn't "some people don't pay for sports streams". The issue is that some corporate fucktards have managed, through the power of lobbying, backroom deals and blatant corruption, to get an engine of country-wide internet censorship to be created - and then abused on their behalf. This isn't the first, or the tenth, time it happens. People should have been sued, fired and jailed after the first time they blocked the entirety of Cloudflare for inane "copyright" reasons - and yet, nothing was done, and the censorship persists.
  - righthand 1y ago
    Perhaps take some of the emotion out of it? I’m asking for perspective and history on the issue, not clueless as to why the situation is bad. This is a US hosted forum, the issue is happening in Spain. Perhaps clarity is called for that’s not specified in the article?
    - izacus 1y ago
      Why are you tone policing a victim of corporate abuse?
      - righthand 1y ago
        Because they’re swearing at me. Do you like to be aggressively attacked for trying to discuss something? I didn’t even ask anything offensive or insinuate that LaLiga was somehow in the right, yet the commenter chose to bite my head off. I didn’t ask the question to start a fight, I asked it because the article did not specify anything historical about the situation. Just because you’ve been abused doesn’t give you the right to be a riled up aßhole to anyone that triggers your emotions.
        LtdJorge 1y ago
        Swore at you?
        righthand 1y ago
        > The issue is that some corporate fucktards have managed Yeah are you new to swear words?
        wiredpancake 1y ago
        [dead]
        defrost 1y ago
        That would be "swearing in your vicinity" not "swearing at you". A distinction clear to those with long familiarity to swearing and swear words.
        righthand 1y ago
        Swearing at someone directly or indirectly is irrelevant. I didn’t write any commentary that deserved such an emotional reaction. Go find a corporate stooge and call them that then instead of writing strongly worded emotional outbursts online at strangers seeking information in a casual conversation.
- riffraff 1y ago
  I can answer for Italy which has the same issue, and a similar "solution",and it's the first option. Watching football has become really expensive in the last decade and people are fed up. Also, sometimes you need different subscriptions to watch all the games of your team. Meanwhile, piracy is cheap and convenient.
- qingcharles 1y ago
  Is it a cultural thing? Computers and copyright are fairly recent innovations in some parts of Europe such as Spain and Italy. Certainly well into the 90s you could still buy pirated media, especially video games, from every mom and pop store.
  - amarcheschi 1y ago
    At least in italy is more of a "people with economic interest in football are also in politics and thus are able to shape policies for their profit"
  - ioteg 1y ago
    Computers and copyright are fairly recent in Spain and Italy? This is astonishingly ignorant, if not simple ragebait.
    - anthk 1y ago
      Ah, yes, the ZX Spectrum arcade games and text adventures from the 80's in Spain, 'fairly recent'. https://base.speccy.org/ProyectoBASE_Historia.html https://base.speccy.org/ProyectoBASE_Historia.html The parent comment confuses Spain and Italy as if they were the same... as if Spain didn't had French and UK influences from the North at all since the 1600's and before... yeah sure. Spain had and has picaresca as the Italians, of course... but we aren't 100% the same and it shows off. We used to buy legal games in the 80's because the prices plumetted down because of the piracy, and between the shaddy game loaders and having to wait 15 minutes per load, everyone wanted at least to buy one or two original games in order to play something without losing literal hours trying to tweak the casette player. Italy in the meanwhile just resold foreing games as if they were local. Some Spaniards did the same too; but it had small powerhouses as Aventuras AD, Erbe Software and such, not just a few by any means.
    - qingcharles 1y ago
      I probably could have worded it clearer. I meant computers + copyright. As in there was no copyright on computer software.
- jonplackett 1y ago
  Football is just ridiculous in general. They sell off different parts of the competitions to different services so you need to subscribe to multiple companies to watch them all. It’s just tremendous corporate greed at the expense of fans. Players are being bought for hundreds of millions - that money is all coming from increasing subscription costs and rinsing fans around the world.
  - FireBeyond 1y ago
    Basketball is another one where there is stupidity. I live in what my TV provider called a "dead zone". I live in the NBA's "broadcast zone" for the Portland Trail Blazers. That means even with League Pass, I cannot watch their home games, because I am meant to watch them on my local TV provider. But guess what, I don't live in the Seattle TV zone. So I don't have a local/any station that broadcasts Blazers game. And the NBA doesn't care either. "Sure, you can only watch half of your team games, sucks to be you."
- amarcheschi 1y ago
  At least here in italy, for some people it's just too expensive to care about paying, for some people it's just that they don't want to pay for it even on cheaper plans which were launched recently at a reasonable - well, more or less - price. We have a similar anti piracy shield and once we got some Google cdn down for half an hour. Imagine not being able to use Google drive because the football league is trying to block football piracy streams - which are trivially searchable online anyway
  - Phemist 1y ago
    In the Netherlands, live streaming of Premier League matches is done by Viaplay (I'm guessing in other countries too?). Their service is very spotty, lots of buffering, especially during highly dynamic (e.g. important) parts of the matches, and they stream at very very low bitrate, often dropping down to 360p. As a result, people cancel their subscriptions. To recuperate some of the losses, Viaplay now licenses one match every weekend to a third party streaming service, this year it is on Amazon Prime. So, now besides the high cost and shoddy service, you suddenly need an additional streaming subscription to be able to view every match. Granted, the streaming on Prime is excellent though. This weekend, the Prime match was Liverpool v Everton, which as a Dutchie is the most interesting match of the weekend (given Liverpool's title win last season, the Dutch trainer and several outstanding Dutch players). Several friends of mine who are into football immediately quit their Viaplay subscription, so who knows how many matches will not be streamable through Viaplay next season? As a legit customer you are constantly chasing an ever shifting landscape of poor quality and overpriced services. Meanwhile with an IPTV subscription you pay little, get high quality streams and have access to _all_ content.
- Bairfhionn 1y ago
  La liga wants to get rid of illegal streams so they can ask for more money for the licenses. Paid Streaming or TV is quite expensive. It's mostly because you have to buy the whole package which includes everything else the company provides. Like Golf or Nascar or whatever they find on ESPN 8. Also paying for a stream only really benefits the rich clubs. The money la liga earns for tv rights is split between professional teams with Barcelona and the two Madrids receiving about 30% of the money. The other 17 teams get the rest. Some fans don't want to see them getting more money (small percentage but never underestimate fans)
- pfortuny 1y ago
  You can't imagine how much you have to pay in Spain for the right of seeing a single La Liga match. Oh wait, you cannot do that. You have to pay for all the championship together with the Champions League and what not.
- matheusmoreira 1y ago
  The reason is irrelevant. Only the private censorship perpertrated by the copyright industry matters.
  - righthand 1y ago
    The reason is relevant because I asked what the reason was. I asked this because I wanted to know how the people of Spain and Laliga got here, the history is relevant. You may only want to focus on the rights violations but that doesn’t make the history and reasons irrelevant.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  Sky in Germany was infamous for not providing nearly close to enough servers to support streaming of high profile games. And their cable TV box used extremely sub-par SoCs which made for an atrocious user experience. In addition the cost only went upwards while the offering reduced every season as Dazn and other players entered the field. I said goodbye to soccer a few years prior to Covid.
- krelian 1y ago
  If you want to watch all of your team's games you need to a) purchase an expensive monthly cable subscription from the company that holds the football rights. b) pay a sizeable sum on top, I think it's about 50 euros per month to be able to watch the actual matches. This is just for La Liga games, you'll need to pay extra if your team plays in other competitions.
  - gausswho 1y ago
    For personal viewing. How much do bars pay?
    - pxndx 1y ago
      Does this matter? I want to watch the games at home, with my friends.
      - gausswho 1y ago
        Sure. Me too. But I also sometimes want to watch the games at a bar, with my friends. And the rate they charge bars in Europe is extortionately high. I wouldn't be surprised if those are the primary targets in this crackdown.
- MSFT_Edging 1y ago
  Rights holders can, at any time, make the distribution of games smooth and affordable. Their choice to infinitely segment sports broadcast results in piracy.
- ascorbic 1y ago
  The main issue isn't that they're blocking the streams: it's that the blocks are so broad they're blocking huge swathes of other parts of the internet. Instead of blocking somepiratesite.futbol they're blocking Cloudflare, Vercel, Netlify, AWS, etc
GardenLetter27 1y ago
This has been going on for years. A VPN is practically mandatory nowadays.
fivekarots 1y ago
In 2019, LaLiga mobile app turned on the mic and location to track bars showing matches without a license [1]. Protection data agency fined them with 250k EUR, but was overturned by the Supreme court in 2024 [2]. [1]: https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/06/12/inenglish/1560350300_425732.html https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/06/12/inenglish/15603... [2]: https://cincodias.elpais.com/companias/2024-07-27/el-supremo-anula-una-sancion-a-laliga-por-su-app-para-espiar-el-pirateo-de-partidos-en-bares.html https://cincodias.elpais.com/companias/2024-07-27/el-supremo...
- okanat 1y ago
  It seems like the EU courts need to be involved in this case. Limiting internet to millions of people to make some people rich also flies too close to an human right violation in 2025 so maybe even ECHR can be involved.
  - tbrownaw 1y ago
    Sounds like the ISP shouldn't be blocking hosting providers that are known to honor narrower takedown orders?
    - cprecioso 1y ago
      The ISPs are compelled by judicial order to take down whatever LaLiga tells them to, and LaLiga is telling them to block the entire IP range. They can’t not do it.
      - tbrownaw 1y ago
        From vague recollections of previous times this came up, I think this is downstream of the providers getting blocked refusing to cooperate though? I know when eSNI / ECH came out, Cloudflare at least made a point of taking about plans to use it to frustrate targeted blocks in hopes that governments would be unwilling to respond by escalating to blanket IP blocks.
      - didntcheck 1y ago
alecsm 1y ago
Right now if you want to use internet on weekends you need to pay a VPN. Even some online games on Steam stop working. I've seen also a several Twitch streamers who can't stream, startups down, etc. We're basically hostages of this stupidity. And you know the funny thing? Football streams are working just fine. Now I feel morally obligated to watch pirated football and never pay them for it.
- pell 1y ago
  They could also make the sport more affordable to watch again.
  - Yeul 1y ago
    Football clubs have a billion eurodollar budget that they need to pay for. And how do they do that? With TV licensing. I live in the Netherlands and everyone here has accepted that a Dutch club will never again get into a Championship League finale. Every Dutch star is playing in Spain or England.
    - hedora 1y ago
      At least in the US, there are minor league / feeder teams that are much cheaper to watch. Going to the stadium for a game is essentially free, and actually enjoyable, since getting tickets and entering the stadium isn’t like dealing with the airlines/tsa, but worse. You’re still supporting the mob though.
      - arcfour 1y ago
        Entering the stadium of an MLB game is maybe a 2-10 minute wait in line followed by scanning your ticket. It is in no way comparable to flying, let alone worse...that's absolutely crazy. Heck even the NFL is just standing around in line, walking through the metal detectors, and scanning your ticket. Source: have gone to 2-3 dozen MLB and NFL games.
        1y ago
cogogo 1y ago
It easier for me to watch La Liga in the US than it is for my brother in-law in Spain. Thank goodness we don’t have the reckless anti-piracy actions here but we do have some of the same BS going on because the same is true for him in reverse. Its easier and cheaper for him to watch the Red Sox in Spain than it is for me in Boston. 1yr of MLBtv is 30 bucks but local blackouts. 1 month of NESN the local broadcaster is the same price. Streaming all sports is a fragmented and extremely expensive mess for the fans and it only seems to be getting worse. I don’t blame people for cheating. Especially in Spain where incomes are significantly lower than the US.
- Scoundreller 1y ago
  UK has similar BS > The "3pm blackout" rule prevents football matches from being shown on UK television between 14:45 and 17:15 on Saturdays. > The policy was introduced in the 1960s to encourage fans to attend lower league games - and it remains in force. > The blackout comes into effect when 50% of fixtures in the top two divisions are scheduled to kick off at 15:00. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c98l671604vo https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c98l671604vo
Foivos 1y ago
Can the service providers somehow block illegal streaming themselves? That way no third party services would be affected?
- michaelt 1y ago
  As I understand it, the only organisation that can block the streaming websites without collateral damage is Cloudflare, and they have not chosen to do so. The situation is a bit irregular, as the streaming providers set up a new website for each game, and the legal system isn't fast-moving enough to issue a court order banning a website within the 90 minutes of a football game. Instead La Liga got a 'dynamic blocking injunction' so they tell ISPs what to block, and ISPs have to block it.
  - Foivos 1y ago
    I imagined a solution where authorities would notify the hosting company of the IPs that are streaming. It should be obvious for the hosting company which customer is using these IPs for streaming illegal content just by studying the traffic pattern, no need to actually look inside the packets. Then they can just ban this customer. That way the authorities will not have a reason to ban IP ranges affecting the other customers.
    - regularjack 1y ago
      Wouldn't the traffic pattern be similar to watching Netflix?
      - Foivos 1y ago
        I think live video has a bit different pattern than video on demand. But aside from it, it should be very obvious: A) you are notified by the intellectual property holders that somebody is streaming pirated content, B) a specific customer or set of customers, who are not a known streaming service, are serving tens or hundrends of IPs with video and C) these customers do not have much activity during other times.
abetancort 1y ago
[dead]
konraditurbe 1y ago
Sucks to have to spin up the VPN anytime there's a match. Wonder how much money are Spanish companies losing out on online sales over this crap. Have this: https://hayahora.futbol/ https://hayahora.futbol/ on my bookmarks every time some site doesn't respond.
bastard_op 1y ago
Imagine if the MPAA/RIAA knew about this during the 2000's to use against the Kazaa, Limewire, etc during that era anywhere/everywhere. It is so overreaching the Internet would have been stalled at the time. It is astonishing the court systems for those countries to allow this if, other than maybe football factors into their GDP (which says something about the nation, maybe they should find something more useful to produce). Just for some silly sports event watching man-children kicking balls around. I grew up in the US as sports were just something on tv, but this is practically holding the nation hostage as though it were a religion, and the world should stop just so they can sell tickets for the only one god, theirs.
- fusionadvocate 1y ago
  It really is incredible to believe that a sports organization has the power to shutdown what is essentially a utility without any oversight. It paints a very bad image of Spain in my mind. It makes one wonder how many more absurdities happen over there.
whitehexagon 1y ago
I ordered a new 4G router here, I've been having so many failed connections, now it all makes sense, in a non-sense kinda way. Anna also gone dark, just when I was traveling and missing a book.
- Scoundreller 1y ago
  If you get a non-Spanish EU SIM, it should route all your traffic through that other country, no? Not sure if roaming always tunnels your traffic back to SIM’s country of origin or not.
  - whitehexagon 1y ago
    I wasnt sure if 4G/mobile has the same 'open internet' rules that telcos usually have to follow for cabled connections. But good idea using foreign SIM, although I'll probably need residential proof or probably have to give a blood sample at this rate.
  - Jolter 1y ago
    I don’t think it does, at all.
  - miki123211 1y ago
    In the overwhelming majority of cases. LBO (local break-out) apparently does exist, though I've never seen it personally.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
anthk 1y ago
I had to use i2pd plus some mirror to update my BSD systems...
gausswho 1y ago
I can't intuit moral reasoning for why a media rights holder has the right to restrict a rebroadcast. They put it out there to reach a wide audience. Why can't I receive it and share it? I can play physical copies of music and movies wherever I happen to bring them. Why can't I do it with the digital variant? Largely I feel like the response to this is a rephrasing of 'because no one will be able to monetize the creation of entertainment'. But that's not a moral reasoning, that's a choice of how to foster a market. Which undermines the explanation of this being about piracy. We can try other ways of growing a market that doesn't inhibit an intuitive natural urge to share.
- tbrownaw 1y ago
  > I can't intuit moral reasoning for why a media rights holder has the right to restrict a rebroadcast. Copyright is based on economic cost/benefit, not natural rights.
- salviati 1y ago
  > I can play physical copies of music and movies wherever I happen to bring them Wait, can you? In the US and EU, physical copies are for personal use only. Where are you that this would be legal?
  - gausswho 1y ago
    You're right, I should have qualified that this is a limited use. But the limit is, in practice, quite fluid. They won't make a lawsuit over a slumber party. Probably not for a meetup. I expect they will for a theatre. Will they for a dive bar with a bunch of old CD's and DVD's? Or for a funeral? The selective enforcement exposes to me that it doesn't really have a ethical leg to stand on.
    - selectodude 1y ago
      The limit isn’t fluid. If you’re operating a business, you can’t use music to make money. Slumber party? Fine. Charging people to sleep at your house? Not fine.
ajsnigrutin 1y ago
Why is there no responsibility for that? And not just LaLiga, but everywhere? You can claim copyright on anything anywhere, things get taken down, zero responsibility if it was wrongful, be it laliga streams, be it youtube copyright strikes or whatever? If there was a law, that if you took down something that you shouldn't have taken down (eg. hundreds of pages), you should be liable for all the damages and income loss for those pages. Same for youtube... copyright strike, proven fair use.. now pay for the lost income of the creator, the creator (webmaster, ...) did nothing wrong, you should be liable for that.
- int_19h 1y ago
  In representative democracies, the laws (on everything, but especially so on property rights) are what they are because the people who benefit from them also, for the most part, own the politicians.
Al-Khwarizmi 1y ago
I'm from Spain, never watch football or pay any attention to it at all, and this year I noticed the day that the Liga started due to the internet suddenly working like crap. After various websites failing to respond I thought "I bet the football season has started again", I googled it and indeed, it started that day. I resubscribed to my VPN right there and then. This situation (which has already been going on for a year or so) has made my attitude towards football change from "I don't like it, but live and let live" to outright hate.
- moffkalast 1y ago
  I will never understand how kicking or throwing a ball around somehow has mass appeal. Even worse when half of it is just people arguing over arbitrary rule interpretations.
  - gtowey 1y ago
    It's one thing to know you don't enjoy it for yourself. But saying "I will never understand" sounds like willfull ignorance. It sounds dangerously close to not wanting to understand because you don't want to accidentally develop any sympathy for "the other side". Please don't fall into that trap.
    - moffkalast 1y ago
      What are you even on about, why would I need sympathy for an optional interest that is by all accounts pretty mainstream and well established worldwide? It's not a disability, it's not an endangered species, it's a billion dollar commercial industry. I just don't see the appeal. In a just world LaLiga would get sued into the ground for disabling a public utility on a level equivallent to an international cyberattack. Oh but how will the poor millionaires break even with their overpriced streaming services if they can't destroy the internet to block some pirates? Jesus Christ, the audacity.
      - arcfour 1y ago
        Because you are acting like smug asshole. People don't like smug assholes, and you aren't helping the world or yourself by being one.
gausswho 1y ago
Since LaLiga has no qualms with blocking Cloudflare IP's that could be used for emergency services. A cautionary tale: In 2025, Optus suffered a network outage that prevented emergency calls (triple-0 in Australia) for nearly 14 hours. During this period, four people died, including an eight-week-old baby. The outage was reportedly caused by a botched firewall upgrade that affected up to 600 households in South Australia alone. https://7news.com.au/news/optus-deaths-firewall-upgrade-reportedly-the-cause-of-deadly-triple-0-outage--c-20083729 https://7news.com.au/news/optus-deaths-firewall-upgrade-repo...
- userbinator 1y ago
  It seems "move fast and break things" has infected the telcos too. In any case, depending on Cloudflare for emergency services seems an extraordinarily stupid idea.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
    ‘Move slow and break things’ would be a more accurate description. These shortcomings aren’t about innovation, they’re about cost.
Xenoamorphous 1y ago
How this is even legal is beyond me.
aarroyoc 1y ago
I just wanted to to enter https://www.osnews.com https://www.osnews.com and it's blocked because of LaLiga. Infuriating...
sspiff 1y ago
I feel like affected ISPs and hosting services should identify LaLiga office IP ranges and block them during office hours. Or just feed them a never ending series of cloudflare turnstile captchas.
- scarlehoff 1y ago
  iirc, part of the problem is that the main ISP (Movistar) is also a football rightholder (Movistar +). So they have decided that blocking cloudflare is profitable for them.
  - cogogo 1y ago
    Definitely part of the problem. A clear antitrust issue.
- inetknght 1y ago
  > I feel like affected ISPs and hosting services should identify LaLiga office IP ranges and block them during office hours. Not just LaLiga, but pretty much any and all busineses and politicians in Spain. Bring the problem to all of Spain and let them figure out who screwed the pooch to end up with Spain back into the dark ages. Of course, that will only work once.
PicassoCTs 1y ago
[dead]
PutaXavier 1y ago
Last month I asked on HN what I can do to fight this as a non-EU citizen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44997883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44997883
merqurio 1y ago
i've been trying to understand what was making the CI fail for about 3h, until i realised it was this thanks to this post. thanks. this sucks.
renatovico 1y ago
If the service use cloud flare expect for trouble :(
haskellshill 1y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago
  Please don't post lame comments like this on HN. F1 obviously requires an elite level of fitness, and exceptional physical and cognitive ability. It's fine to dislike it or to have concerns about the environmental impact, but sneering about its merits as a sport amounts to flamebait, which is against the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45326345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45326345 and marked it off topic.
drnick1 1y ago
Intellectual property should be abolished or greatly limited. It rarely serves its intended purpose (rewarding authors/creators) and instead creates rents and dangerous monopolies. A related issue that suggests that the copyright system is broken is that it isn't equally enforced everywhere. The rest of the world freely copies books, drugs, and tech in any way they please, so all it does in the end is inflate prices for U.S. consumers, who effectively subsidize the rest of the world.
- barthvr 1y ago
  A few years ago, I checked how many subscriptions I had to get in order to watch all games of my club in the season (in France). I was ridiculous : 2.5 providers for the league (Canal+ with their "sports" pack for some games + Bein Sport), RMC Sport for the euro cups, Eurosport for the French Cup, and Infosport+ (a Canal+ channel but not included in their sports pack, go figure), the total was close to 115€/month (that's close to a full month of salary at minimum wage). All with a 12-months subscription, even if the channel (like Eurosport or Infosport+) may not broadcast one single game of the team (related to cup draws). 20 years ago, you could watch ALL French football with only TF1/FR2/FR3 (free TV Channels) and Canal+ for €30/month. When the LFP decided to split games to different broadcasters, everything started to go South. And this year, they couldn't find any broadcaster for the league, so they had to create their own channel, which can broadcast only 8 games per match day, since Bein still has a contract for the 9th one.
- FMecha 1y ago
  I felt generative AI has weakened the argument against intellectual property.
  - drnick1 1y ago
    Why so? I dislike the "AI everywhere" fad, but it's hard to argue LLMs and AI in general aren't a form of technological progress. And generative AI happened partly because IP laws were basically disregarded.
    - 1y ago
carlosbaraza 1y ago
I live in Spain. The main problem is that your internet becomes patchy and things stop working for a few hours during the match. People notice the incident, but they don't understand what is happening, they just move on and come back few hours later for it to be resolved. Only some people understand the depth–usually tech people like us that get paged–and complain, and then the president from LaLiga call us a "bunch of freaks". I have personally sent letters to everyone, including the court that ruled and allowed this whole mess. The judge in question must be either extremely incompetent or corrupted. The court response to this problem wasn't acknowledging it, but to double down, because it seems like some egos were hurt. The only way I can imagine this situation stopping is by someone dying from a core healthcare system malfunctioning and a court case becoming viral. In the meantime, a single private institution can destroy the internet whenever they want, with full legal backup. Just insane.
motbus3 1y ago
This will soon be turned into a political weapon. You do what I want or I cut your internet.

400 points by akyuu 1y ago

A few months ago I cancelled my subscription to watch LaLiga. I won't pay a single euro to these tyrants who impose censorship on innocent people.

righthand 1y ago

Why do they not pay for streams? Is this a “cable sub cost is too high” or a “broadcasters want to blackout stream so only locals and the right networks can see the game” situation? EDIT: “One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue,” explained Newell [0] [0] https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-not-price/ https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-...

ACCount37 1y ago
It really doesn't matter. The issue isn't "some people don't pay for sports streams". The issue is that some corporate fucktards have managed, through the power of lobbying, backroom deals and blatant corruption, to get an engine of country-wide internet censorship to be created - and then abused on their behalf. This isn't the first, or the tenth, time it happens. People should have been sued, fired and jailed after the first time they blocked the entirety of Cloudflare for inane "copyright" reasons - and yet, nothing was done, and the censorship persists.
- righthand 1y ago
  Perhaps take some of the emotion out of it? I’m asking for perspective and history on the issue, not clueless as to why the situation is bad. This is a US hosted forum, the issue is happening in Spain. Perhaps clarity is called for that’s not specified in the article?
  - izacus 1y ago
    Why are you tone policing a victim of corporate abuse?
    - righthand 1y ago
      Because they’re swearing at me. Do you like to be aggressively attacked for trying to discuss something? I didn’t even ask anything offensive or insinuate that LaLiga was somehow in the right, yet the commenter chose to bite my head off. I didn’t ask the question to start a fight, I asked it because the article did not specify anything historical about the situation. Just because you’ve been abused doesn’t give you the right to be a riled up aßhole to anyone that triggers your emotions.
      - LtdJorge 1y ago
        Swore at you?
        righthand 1y ago
        > The issue is that some corporate fucktards have managed Yeah are you new to swear words?
        wiredpancake 1y ago
        [dead]
        defrost 1y ago
        That would be "swearing in your vicinity" not "swearing at you". A distinction clear to those with long familiarity to swearing and swear words.
        righthand 1y ago
        Swearing at someone directly or indirectly is irrelevant. I didn’t write any commentary that deserved such an emotional reaction. Go find a corporate stooge and call them that then instead of writing strongly worded emotional outbursts online at strangers seeking information in a casual conversation.
riffraff 1y ago
I can answer for Italy which has the same issue, and a similar "solution",and it's the first option. Watching football has become really expensive in the last decade and people are fed up. Also, sometimes you need different subscriptions to watch all the games of your team. Meanwhile, piracy is cheap and convenient.
qingcharles 1y ago
Is it a cultural thing? Computers and copyright are fairly recent innovations in some parts of Europe such as Spain and Italy. Certainly well into the 90s you could still buy pirated media, especially video games, from every mom and pop store.
- amarcheschi 1y ago
  At least in italy is more of a "people with economic interest in football are also in politics and thus are able to shape policies for their profit"
- ioteg 1y ago
  Computers and copyright are fairly recent in Spain and Italy? This is astonishingly ignorant, if not simple ragebait.
  - anthk 1y ago
    Ah, yes, the ZX Spectrum arcade games and text adventures from the 80's in Spain, 'fairly recent'. https://base.speccy.org/ProyectoBASE_Historia.html https://base.speccy.org/ProyectoBASE_Historia.html The parent comment confuses Spain and Italy as if they were the same... as if Spain didn't had French and UK influences from the North at all since the 1600's and before... yeah sure. Spain had and has picaresca as the Italians, of course... but we aren't 100% the same and it shows off. We used to buy legal games in the 80's because the prices plumetted down because of the piracy, and between the shaddy game loaders and having to wait 15 minutes per load, everyone wanted at least to buy one or two original games in order to play something without losing literal hours trying to tweak the casette player. Italy in the meanwhile just resold foreing games as if they were local. Some Spaniards did the same too; but it had small powerhouses as Aventuras AD, Erbe Software and such, not just a few by any means.
  - qingcharles 1y ago
    I probably could have worded it clearer. I meant computers + copyright. As in there was no copyright on computer software.
jonplackett 1y ago
Football is just ridiculous in general. They sell off different parts of the competitions to different services so you need to subscribe to multiple companies to watch them all. It’s just tremendous corporate greed at the expense of fans. Players are being bought for hundreds of millions - that money is all coming from increasing subscription costs and rinsing fans around the world.
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  Basketball is another one where there is stupidity. I live in what my TV provider called a "dead zone". I live in the NBA's "broadcast zone" for the Portland Trail Blazers. That means even with League Pass, I cannot watch their home games, because I am meant to watch them on my local TV provider. But guess what, I don't live in the Seattle TV zone. So I don't have a local/any station that broadcasts Blazers game. And the NBA doesn't care either. "Sure, you can only watch half of your team games, sucks to be you."
amarcheschi 1y ago
At least here in italy, for some people it's just too expensive to care about paying, for some people it's just that they don't want to pay for it even on cheaper plans which were launched recently at a reasonable - well, more or less - price. We have a similar anti piracy shield and once we got some Google cdn down for half an hour. Imagine not being able to use Google drive because the football league is trying to block football piracy streams - which are trivially searchable online anyway
- Phemist 1y ago
  In the Netherlands, live streaming of Premier League matches is done by Viaplay (I'm guessing in other countries too?). Their service is very spotty, lots of buffering, especially during highly dynamic (e.g. important) parts of the matches, and they stream at very very low bitrate, often dropping down to 360p. As a result, people cancel their subscriptions. To recuperate some of the losses, Viaplay now licenses one match every weekend to a third party streaming service, this year it is on Amazon Prime. So, now besides the high cost and shoddy service, you suddenly need an additional streaming subscription to be able to view every match. Granted, the streaming on Prime is excellent though. This weekend, the Prime match was Liverpool v Everton, which as a Dutchie is the most interesting match of the weekend (given Liverpool's title win last season, the Dutch trainer and several outstanding Dutch players). Several friends of mine who are into football immediately quit their Viaplay subscription, so who knows how many matches will not be streamable through Viaplay next season? As a legit customer you are constantly chasing an ever shifting landscape of poor quality and overpriced services. Meanwhile with an IPTV subscription you pay little, get high quality streams and have access to _all_ content.
Bairfhionn 1y ago
La liga wants to get rid of illegal streams so they can ask for more money for the licenses. Paid Streaming or TV is quite expensive. It's mostly because you have to buy the whole package which includes everything else the company provides. Like Golf or Nascar or whatever they find on ESPN 8. Also paying for a stream only really benefits the rich clubs. The money la liga earns for tv rights is split between professional teams with Barcelona and the two Madrids receiving about 30% of the money. The other 17 teams get the rest. Some fans don't want to see them getting more money (small percentage but never underestimate fans)
pfortuny 1y ago
You can't imagine how much you have to pay in Spain for the right of seeing a single La Liga match. Oh wait, you cannot do that. You have to pay for all the championship together with the Champions League and what not.
matheusmoreira 1y ago
The reason is irrelevant. Only the private censorship perpertrated by the copyright industry matters.
- righthand 1y ago
  The reason is relevant because I asked what the reason was. I asked this because I wanted to know how the people of Spain and Laliga got here, the history is relevant. You may only want to focus on the rights violations but that doesn’t make the history and reasons irrelevant.
mschuster91 1y ago
Sky in Germany was infamous for not providing nearly close to enough servers to support streaming of high profile games. And their cable TV box used extremely sub-par SoCs which made for an atrocious user experience. In addition the cost only went upwards while the offering reduced every season as Dazn and other players entered the field. I said goodbye to soccer a few years prior to Covid.
krelian 1y ago
If you want to watch all of your team's games you need to a) purchase an expensive monthly cable subscription from the company that holds the football rights. b) pay a sizeable sum on top, I think it's about 50 euros per month to be able to watch the actual matches. This is just for La Liga games, you'll need to pay extra if your team plays in other competitions.
- gausswho 1y ago
  For personal viewing. How much do bars pay?
  - pxndx 1y ago
    Does this matter? I want to watch the games at home, with my friends.
    - gausswho 1y ago
      Sure. Me too. But I also sometimes want to watch the games at a bar, with my friends. And the rate they charge bars in Europe is extortionately high. I wouldn't be surprised if those are the primary targets in this crackdown.
MSFT_Edging 1y ago
Rights holders can, at any time, make the distribution of games smooth and affordable. Their choice to infinitely segment sports broadcast results in piracy.
ascorbic 1y ago
The main issue isn't that they're blocking the streams: it's that the blocks are so broad they're blocking huge swathes of other parts of the internet. Instead of blocking somepiratesite.futbol they're blocking Cloudflare, Vercel, Netlify, AWS, etc

GardenLetter27 1y ago

This has been going on for years. A VPN is practically mandatory nowadays.

fivekarots 1y ago

In 2019, LaLiga mobile app turned on the mic and location to track bars showing matches without a license [1]. Protection data agency fined them with 250k EUR, but was overturned by the Supreme court in 2024 [2]. [1]: https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/06/12/inenglish/1560350300_425732.html https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/06/12/inenglish/15603... [2]: https://cincodias.elpais.com/companias/2024-07-27/el-supremo-anula-una-sancion-a-laliga-por-su-app-para-espiar-el-pirateo-de-partidos-en-bares.html https://cincodias.elpais.com/companias/2024-07-27/el-supremo...

okanat 1y ago
It seems like the EU courts need to be involved in this case. Limiting internet to millions of people to make some people rich also flies too close to an human right violation in 2025 so maybe even ECHR can be involved.
- tbrownaw 1y ago
  Sounds like the ISP shouldn't be blocking hosting providers that are known to honor narrower takedown orders?
  - cprecioso 1y ago
    The ISPs are compelled by judicial order to take down whatever LaLiga tells them to, and LaLiga is telling them to block the entire IP range. They can’t not do it.
    - tbrownaw 1y ago
      From vague recollections of previous times this came up, I think this is downstream of the providers getting blocked refusing to cooperate though? I know when eSNI / ECH came out, Cloudflare at least made a point of taking about plans to use it to frustrate targeted blocks in hopes that governments would be unwilling to respond by escalating to blanket IP blocks.
    - didntcheck 1y ago

alecsm 1y ago

Right now if you want to use internet on weekends you need to pay a VPN. Even some online games on Steam stop working. I've seen also a several Twitch streamers who can't stream, startups down, etc. We're basically hostages of this stupidity. And you know the funny thing? Football streams are working just fine. Now I feel morally obligated to watch pirated football and never pay them for it.

pell 1y ago
They could also make the sport more affordable to watch again.
- Yeul 1y ago
  Football clubs have a billion eurodollar budget that they need to pay for. And how do they do that? With TV licensing. I live in the Netherlands and everyone here has accepted that a Dutch club will never again get into a Championship League finale. Every Dutch star is playing in Spain or England.
  - hedora 1y ago
    At least in the US, there are minor league / feeder teams that are much cheaper to watch. Going to the stadium for a game is essentially free, and actually enjoyable, since getting tickets and entering the stadium isn’t like dealing with the airlines/tsa, but worse. You’re still supporting the mob though.
    - arcfour 1y ago
      Entering the stadium of an MLB game is maybe a 2-10 minute wait in line followed by scanning your ticket. It is in no way comparable to flying, let alone worse...that's absolutely crazy. Heck even the NFL is just standing around in line, walking through the metal detectors, and scanning your ticket. Source: have gone to 2-3 dozen MLB and NFL games.
      - 1y ago

cogogo 1y ago

It easier for me to watch La Liga in the US than it is for my brother in-law in Spain. Thank goodness we don’t have the reckless anti-piracy actions here but we do have some of the same BS going on because the same is true for him in reverse. Its easier and cheaper for him to watch the Red Sox in Spain than it is for me in Boston. 1yr of MLBtv is 30 bucks but local blackouts. 1 month of NESN the local broadcaster is the same price. Streaming all sports is a fragmented and extremely expensive mess for the fans and it only seems to be getting worse. I don’t blame people for cheating. Especially in Spain where incomes are significantly lower than the US.

Scoundreller 1y ago
UK has similar BS > The "3pm blackout" rule prevents football matches from being shown on UK television between 14:45 and 17:15 on Saturdays. > The policy was introduced in the 1960s to encourage fans to attend lower league games - and it remains in force. > The blackout comes into effect when 50% of fixtures in the top two divisions are scheduled to kick off at 15:00. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c98l671604vo https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c98l671604vo

Foivos 1y ago

Can the service providers somehow block illegal streaming themselves? That way no third party services would be affected?

michaelt 1y ago
As I understand it, the only organisation that can block the streaming websites without collateral damage is Cloudflare, and they have not chosen to do so. The situation is a bit irregular, as the streaming providers set up a new website for each game, and the legal system isn't fast-moving enough to issue a court order banning a website within the 90 minutes of a football game. Instead La Liga got a 'dynamic blocking injunction' so they tell ISPs what to block, and ISPs have to block it.
- Foivos 1y ago
  I imagined a solution where authorities would notify the hosting company of the IPs that are streaming. It should be obvious for the hosting company which customer is using these IPs for streaming illegal content just by studying the traffic pattern, no need to actually look inside the packets. Then they can just ban this customer. That way the authorities will not have a reason to ban IP ranges affecting the other customers.
  - regularjack 1y ago
    Wouldn't the traffic pattern be similar to watching Netflix?
    - Foivos 1y ago
      I think live video has a bit different pattern than video on demand. But aside from it, it should be very obvious: A) you are notified by the intellectual property holders that somebody is streaming pirated content, B) a specific customer or set of customers, who are not a known streaming service, are serving tens or hundrends of IPs with video and C) these customers do not have much activity during other times.

abetancort 1y ago

[dead]

konraditurbe 1y ago

Sucks to have to spin up the VPN anytime there's a match. Wonder how much money are Spanish companies losing out on online sales over this crap. Have this: https://hayahora.futbol/ https://hayahora.futbol/ on my bookmarks every time some site doesn't respond.

bastard_op 1y ago

Imagine if the MPAA/RIAA knew about this during the 2000's to use against the Kazaa, Limewire, etc during that era anywhere/everywhere. It is so overreaching the Internet would have been stalled at the time. It is astonishing the court systems for those countries to allow this if, other than maybe football factors into their GDP (which says something about the nation, maybe they should find something more useful to produce). Just for some silly sports event watching man-children kicking balls around. I grew up in the US as sports were just something on tv, but this is practically holding the nation hostage as though it were a religion, and the world should stop just so they can sell tickets for the only one god, theirs.

fusionadvocate 1y ago
It really is incredible to believe that a sports organization has the power to shutdown what is essentially a utility without any oversight. It paints a very bad image of Spain in my mind. It makes one wonder how many more absurdities happen over there.

whitehexagon 1y ago

I ordered a new 4G router here, I've been having so many failed connections, now it all makes sense, in a non-sense kinda way. Anna also gone dark, just when I was traveling and missing a book.

Scoundreller 1y ago
If you get a non-Spanish EU SIM, it should route all your traffic through that other country, no? Not sure if roaming always tunnels your traffic back to SIM’s country of origin or not.
- whitehexagon 1y ago
  I wasnt sure if 4G/mobile has the same 'open internet' rules that telcos usually have to follow for cabled connections. But good idea using foreign SIM, although I'll probably need residential proof or probably have to give a blood sample at this rate.
- Jolter 1y ago
  I don’t think it does, at all.
- miki123211 1y ago
  In the overwhelming majority of cases. LBO (local break-out) apparently does exist, though I've never seen it personally.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

anthk 1y ago

I had to use i2pd plus some mirror to update my BSD systems...

gausswho 1y ago

I can't intuit moral reasoning for why a media rights holder has the right to restrict a rebroadcast. They put it out there to reach a wide audience. Why can't I receive it and share it? I can play physical copies of music and movies wherever I happen to bring them. Why can't I do it with the digital variant? Largely I feel like the response to this is a rephrasing of 'because no one will be able to monetize the creation of entertainment'. But that's not a moral reasoning, that's a choice of how to foster a market. Which undermines the explanation of this being about piracy. We can try other ways of growing a market that doesn't inhibit an intuitive natural urge to share.

tbrownaw 1y ago
> I can't intuit moral reasoning for why a media rights holder has the right to restrict a rebroadcast. Copyright is based on economic cost/benefit, not natural rights.
salviati 1y ago
> I can play physical copies of music and movies wherever I happen to bring them Wait, can you? In the US and EU, physical copies are for personal use only. Where are you that this would be legal?
- gausswho 1y ago
  You're right, I should have qualified that this is a limited use. But the limit is, in practice, quite fluid. They won't make a lawsuit over a slumber party. Probably not for a meetup. I expect they will for a theatre. Will they for a dive bar with a bunch of old CD's and DVD's? Or for a funeral? The selective enforcement exposes to me that it doesn't really have a ethical leg to stand on.
  - selectodude 1y ago
    The limit isn’t fluid. If you’re operating a business, you can’t use music to make money. Slumber party? Fine. Charging people to sleep at your house? Not fine.

ajsnigrutin 1y ago

Why is there no responsibility for that? And not just LaLiga, but everywhere? You can claim copyright on anything anywhere, things get taken down, zero responsibility if it was wrongful, be it laliga streams, be it youtube copyright strikes or whatever? If there was a law, that if you took down something that you shouldn't have taken down (eg. hundreds of pages), you should be liable for all the damages and income loss for those pages. Same for youtube... copyright strike, proven fair use.. now pay for the lost income of the creator, the creator (webmaster, ...) did nothing wrong, you should be liable for that.

int_19h 1y ago
In representative democracies, the laws (on everything, but especially so on property rights) are what they are because the people who benefit from them also, for the most part, own the politicians.

Al-Khwarizmi 1y ago

I'm from Spain, never watch football or pay any attention to it at all, and this year I noticed the day that the Liga started due to the internet suddenly working like crap. After various websites failing to respond I thought "I bet the football season has started again", I googled it and indeed, it started that day. I resubscribed to my VPN right there and then. This situation (which has already been going on for a year or so) has made my attitude towards football change from "I don't like it, but live and let live" to outright hate.

moffkalast 1y ago
I will never understand how kicking or throwing a ball around somehow has mass appeal. Even worse when half of it is just people arguing over arbitrary rule interpretations.
- gtowey 1y ago
  It's one thing to know you don't enjoy it for yourself. But saying "I will never understand" sounds like willfull ignorance. It sounds dangerously close to not wanting to understand because you don't want to accidentally develop any sympathy for "the other side". Please don't fall into that trap.
  - moffkalast 1y ago
    What are you even on about, why would I need sympathy for an optional interest that is by all accounts pretty mainstream and well established worldwide? It's not a disability, it's not an endangered species, it's a billion dollar commercial industry. I just don't see the appeal. In a just world LaLiga would get sued into the ground for disabling a public utility on a level equivallent to an international cyberattack. Oh but how will the poor millionaires break even with their overpriced streaming services if they can't destroy the internet to block some pirates? Jesus Christ, the audacity.
    - arcfour 1y ago
      Because you are acting like smug asshole. People don't like smug assholes, and you aren't helping the world or yourself by being one.

gausswho 1y ago

Since LaLiga has no qualms with blocking Cloudflare IP's that could be used for emergency services. A cautionary tale: In 2025, Optus suffered a network outage that prevented emergency calls (triple-0 in Australia) for nearly 14 hours. During this period, four people died, including an eight-week-old baby. The outage was reportedly caused by a botched firewall upgrade that affected up to 600 households in South Australia alone. https://7news.com.au/news/optus-deaths-firewall-upgrade-reportedly-the-cause-of-deadly-triple-0-outage--c-20083729 https://7news.com.au/news/optus-deaths-firewall-upgrade-repo...

userbinator 1y ago
It seems "move fast and break things" has infected the telcos too. In any case, depending on Cloudflare for emergency services seems an extraordinarily stupid idea.
- hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
  ‘Move slow and break things’ would be a more accurate description. These shortcomings aren’t about innovation, they’re about cost.

Xenoamorphous 1y ago

How this is even legal is beyond me.

aarroyoc 1y ago

I just wanted to to enter https://www.osnews.com https://www.osnews.com and it's blocked because of LaLiga. Infuriating...

sspiff 1y ago

I feel like affected ISPs and hosting services should identify LaLiga office IP ranges and block them during office hours. Or just feed them a never ending series of cloudflare turnstile captchas.

scarlehoff 1y ago
iirc, part of the problem is that the main ISP (Movistar) is also a football rightholder (Movistar +). So they have decided that blocking cloudflare is profitable for them.
- cogogo 1y ago
  Definitely part of the problem. A clear antitrust issue.
inetknght 1y ago
> I feel like affected ISPs and hosting services should identify LaLiga office IP ranges and block them during office hours. Not just LaLiga, but pretty much any and all busineses and politicians in Spain. Bring the problem to all of Spain and let them figure out who screwed the pooch to end up with Spain back into the dark ages. Of course, that will only work once.

PicassoCTs 1y ago

[dead]

PutaXavier 1y ago

Last month I asked on HN what I can do to fight this as a non-EU citizen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44997883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44997883

merqurio 1y ago

i've been trying to understand what was making the CI fail for about 3h, until i realised it was this thanks to this post. thanks. this sucks.

renatovico 1y ago

If the service use cloud flare expect for trouble :(

haskellshill 1y ago

[flagged]

tomhow 1y ago
Please don't post lame comments like this on HN. F1 obviously requires an elite level of fitness, and exceptional physical and cognitive ability. It's fine to dislike it or to have concerns about the environmental impact, but sneering about its merits as a sport amounts to flamebait, which is against the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45326345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45326345 and marked it off topic.

drnick1 1y ago

Intellectual property should be abolished or greatly limited. It rarely serves its intended purpose (rewarding authors/creators) and instead creates rents and dangerous monopolies. A related issue that suggests that the copyright system is broken is that it isn't equally enforced everywhere. The rest of the world freely copies books, drugs, and tech in any way they please, so all it does in the end is inflate prices for U.S. consumers, who effectively subsidize the rest of the world.

barthvr 1y ago
A few years ago, I checked how many subscriptions I had to get in order to watch all games of my club in the season (in France). I was ridiculous : 2.5 providers for the league (Canal+ with their "sports" pack for some games + Bein Sport), RMC Sport for the euro cups, Eurosport for the French Cup, and Infosport+ (a Canal+ channel but not included in their sports pack, go figure), the total was close to 115€/month (that's close to a full month of salary at minimum wage). All with a 12-months subscription, even if the channel (like Eurosport or Infosport+) may not broadcast one single game of the team (related to cup draws). 20 years ago, you could watch ALL French football with only TF1/FR2/FR3 (free TV Channels) and Canal+ for €30/month. When the LFP decided to split games to different broadcasters, everything started to go South. And this year, they couldn't find any broadcaster for the league, so they had to create their own channel, which can broadcast only 8 games per match day, since Bein still has a contract for the 9th one.
FMecha 1y ago
I felt generative AI has weakened the argument against intellectual property.
- drnick1 1y ago
  Why so? I dislike the "AI everywhere" fad, but it's hard to argue LLMs and AI in general aren't a form of technological progress. And generative AI happened partly because IP laws were basically disregarded.
  - 1y ago

carlosbaraza 1y ago

I live in Spain. The main problem is that your internet becomes patchy and things stop working for a few hours during the match. People notice the incident, but they don't understand what is happening, they just move on and come back few hours later for it to be resolved. Only some people understand the depth–usually tech people like us that get paged–and complain, and then the president from LaLiga call us a "bunch of freaks". I have personally sent letters to everyone, including the court that ruled and allowed this whole mess. The judge in question must be either extremely incompetent or corrupted. The court response to this problem wasn't acknowledging it, but to double down, because it seems like some egos were hurt. The only way I can imagine this situation stopping is by someone dying from a core healthcare system malfunctioning and a court case becoming viral. In the meantime, a single private institution can destroy the internet whenever they want, with full legal backup. Just insane.

motbus3 1y ago

This will soon be turned into a political weapon. You do what I want or I cut your internet.