LaLiga/Cloudflare Crisis: ISPs Urged to Action Amid Mass Overblocking
LaLiga, Spain’s top football league, has escalated its anti-piracy campaign by obtaining court orders to block IP addresses used for unauthorized streaming. These blocks have targeted Cloudflare IPs, which are shared among many legitimate websites. As a result, thousands of lawful sites have been inadvertently blocked, causing significant collateral damage.
A Spanish court upheld LaLiga’s right to proceed, stating that Cloudflare failed to prove harm. Approximately 3,000 IP addresses are now being blocked every week. This mass overblocking has drawn criticism, with Cloudflare and the cybersecurity group RootedCON raising alarms about internet stability and abuse of legal processes.
Despite the backlash, the Spanish tech association DigitalES is urging ISPs and internet intermediaries to comply with the court’s anti-piracy directives. LaLiga defends its actions, blaming Cloudflare for enabling pirate sites to hide behind its infrastructure and insisting its goal is to protect intellectual property, not target legitimate platforms.
The situation highlights growing tensions between copyright enforcement and internet freedom, raising questions about proportionality and unintended consequences of IP-based blocking.
