- Cloudflare claims La Liga's "indiscriminate blocking" is illegal
- La Liga accuses Cloudflare of prioritizing commercial interests over legal obligations
- Spain's anti-piracy efforts reportedly affect legitimate domains
The conflict between Cloudflare and La Liga has escalated from technical disagreements to legal confrontations, as the US tech company challenges what it deems "indiscriminate blocking practices" enforced by the Spanish football league.
According to the Associated Press (AP), the dispute revolves around La Liga's aggressive measures to combat illegal streaming. The league employs around 50 analysts to monitor the web for pirated broadcasts, issuing takedown requests to intermediaries like Cloudflare.
Cloudflare has been legally contesting these actions since last summer, aiming to address Spain's blocking of illegal football streams before the next La Liga season. The company has appealed to the Spanish Constitutional Court to demonstrate that La Liga's excessive blocking is unlawful.
The CDN and DNS resolver argues that the current enforcement strategy is overly broad, hindering Spanish users' access to legitimate websites during live matches. Last year, many users resorted to VPN services to bypass these restrictions.
Cloudflare asserts that La Liga's enforcement tactics, intended to reduce piracy, inadvertently obstruct access to non-infringing content hosted on the same servers. The company warns that La Liga operates under the assumption that its commercial interests outweigh the rights of ordinary Spanish users to access lawful sites.
