LaLiga's Anti-Piracy Crackdown Triggers Widespread Internet Disruptions in Spain
26 comments
·September 21, 2025cogogo
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.
fivekarots
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/15603... [2]: https://cincodias.elpais.com/companias/2024-07-27/el-supremo...
Foivos
Can the service providers somehow block illegal streaming themselves? That way no third party services would be affected?
GardenLetter27
This has been going on for years. A VPN is practically mandatory nowadays.
abetancort
[dead]
righthand
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?
ACCount37
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.
MSFT_Edging
Rights holders can, at any time, make the distribution of games smooth and affordable.
Their choice to infinitely segment sports broadcast results in piracy.
riffraff
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.
amarcheschi
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
krelian
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.
jonplackett
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.
Bairfhionn
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
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.
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.