> The football league would rather not have pirates livestream their ~90 minute games.
Funny enough, I work in IT and I've had to use a VPN to be able to do my job when soccer is on, but my two non-tech-savy family members that do watch soccer using pirate livestreams say that they've never had any issues with blocked streams.
I work in IT and have found that the issue impacts my work but not my ability to stream sports from sites of questionable legality. Of course, I don't pirate La Liga matches but that's primarily because I don't give a shit about soccer.
But the point is that the measure does more to block legitimate use than illegitimate (in my experience). And next they want to go after VPNs. Wonderful.
> Cloudflare would rather not block websites without a court order specifying the sites to be blocked.
why would they?
> squabble between two huge corporations
I think this is just LaLiga using it's cultural and economical power, don't think Cloudflare or the courts should be making exceptions just so they can control how people watch football
Plenty of companies proactively take action against shady users, even if not 100% required under law. Youtube has content id, social media companies have "community guidelines", and ISPs have AUPs.
technically, LaLiga themselves doesn't even do the blocking. They have a court order from some years ago that allows them to compel all the individual ISPs to block any IP addresses they specify, with no oversight or review
The football league would rather not have pirates livestream their ~90 minute games.
Pirates would rather not be blocked, so they create a new, disposable website for every game. Any blocking must happen fast.
Cloudflare would rather not block websites without a court order specifying the sites to be blocked.
The courts would rather not create a special fast lane through the courts, just to resolve a squabble between two huge corporations.
> The football league would rather not have pirates livestream their ~90 minute games.
Funny enough, I work in IT and I've had to use a VPN to be able to do my job when soccer is on, but my two non-tech-savy family members that do watch soccer using pirate livestreams say that they've never had any issues with blocked streams.
I work in IT and have found that the issue impacts my work but not my ability to stream sports from sites of questionable legality. Of course, I don't pirate La Liga matches but that's primarily because I don't give a shit about soccer.
But the point is that the measure does more to block legitimate use than illegitimate (in my experience). And next they want to go after VPNs. Wonderful.
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But you must realize, the alternative to this is that some very wealthy Spanish companies ... lose a small amount of money.
Surely you understand now. Go about your business, poor person.
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> Cloudflare would rather not block websites without a court order specifying the sites to be blocked.
why would they?
> squabble between two huge corporations
I think this is just LaLiga using it's cultural and economical power, don't think Cloudflare or the courts should be making exceptions just so they can control how people watch football
> why would they?
Well, in this case, the alternative is all of Spain intermittently blocking lots of Cloudflare.
But if Cloudflare bows to Spain in this case, every jurisdiction will want to pile up lots of special case rules for Cloudflare to try and implement.
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>why would they?
Plenty of companies proactively take action against shady users, even if not 100% required under law. Youtube has content id, social media companies have "community guidelines", and ISPs have AUPs.
The US is captured by the Israeli lobby. Spain is captured by the football lobby.
So what, do they just block a range of IP addresses and are then done with it?
technically, LaLiga themselves doesn't even do the blocking. They have a court order from some years ago that allows them to compel all the individual ISPs to block any IP addresses they specify, with no oversight or review
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Here's a good English-language article about it, with a timeline: https://daniel.es/blog/cloudflare-vs-la-liga/
Looks like same old regulatory capture.
Also, a classic tweet from the Cloudflare CEO re their fight with Italians authorities re censorship:
https://xcancel.com/eastdakota/status/2009654937303896492
Everyone looks bad in this conflict.
How does this make Matthew look bad?
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Because LaLiga and football in general is what is governing Spain really.
to stop people pirating football streams while matches are on. Insanity
The website has a language selector on the right just below the initial screen, just FYI.
to """"""""""prevent piracy""""""""""