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.
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].
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.
They need to lecture these guys very seriously. La Liga is disrupting completely legit and business critical (probably in some cases safety critical) infrastructure, to.. combat piracy of entertainment content? The Spanish government is seemingly complicit. Feels like 2010 in some corrupt pseudo-democracy.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
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
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
They are stupid enough that they block almost no ipv6 range. So if your provider has ipv6, you're relatively safe.
They could also make the sport more affordable to watch again.
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...
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.
They need to lecture these guys very seriously. La Liga is disrupting completely legit and business critical (probably in some cases safety critical) infrastructure, to.. combat piracy of entertainment content? The Spanish government is seemingly complicit. Feels like 2010 in some corrupt pseudo-democracy.
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.
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.
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/ on my bookmarks every time some site doesn't respond.
This has been going on for years. A VPN is practically mandatory nowadays.
Can the service providers somehow block illegal streaming themselves? That way no third party services would be affected?
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.
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-...
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.
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.
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
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.
For personal viewing. How much do bars pay?
Does this matter? I want to watch the games at home, with my friends.
Rights holders can, at any time, make the distribution of games smooth and affordable.
Their choice to infinitely segment sports broadcast results in piracy.
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.
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)
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.
The reason is irrelevant. Only the private censorship perpertrated by the copyright industry matters.
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.
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.
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.
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"
Computers and copyright are fairly recent in Spain and Italy? This is astonishingly ignorant, if not simple ragebait.
> Computers and copyright are fairly recent innovations in some parts of Europe such as Spain and Italy
LOL, what did you smoke, man?
Fairly recent innovations? Lol.