LaLiga’s “Precise” Blocking Cut Piracy By 40-60%, “Without Collateral Impact”

After months of unprecedented site-blocking controversy, LaLiga informs TorrentFreak that piracy decreased by 40% at weekends and as much as 60% for a hotly-anticipated matchup. Yet interestingly, LaLiga's view of the nationwide overblocking crisis sits in stark contrast to reports published elsewhere. Primarily, there's no hard evidence that a crisis even exists; total formal complaints received by LaLiga in its dedicated inbox: zero.

When rightsholders, broadcasters, and ISPs have a shared interest in the success of a multi-billion euro broadcasting rights deal, there’s no dispute over the need for a blocking order.

With formalities out of the way, who argues against asking the court for anything less than the full measures the judge is prepared to authorize?

When Telefonica spent billions acquiring broadcasting rights from LaLiga, the companies received full backing from ISPs/TV providers to protect their collective revenues. According to LaLiga’s reading of the piracy blocking order subsequently obtained from the court, it authorizes the applicants to take whatever blocking actions are necessary to prevent access in Spain to around 130 pirate sites.

That many of the sites used Cloudflare IP addresses, each shared among hundreds or thousands of sites with no connection to piracy, came as no surprise to the applicants. Unlike blocking orders obtained outside Spain where similar issues are dealt with differently, LaLiga began instructing ISPs to block Cloudflare IP addresses used by pirate sites listed in the order.

Outlawed By Some Courts, Unprecedented Blocking Ensued
Some estimates claim that over two million innocent sites were affected by blocking but whatever the true number, the decision to block Cloudflare at scale was unprecedented.

LaLiga’s claim, that the injunction authorizes blocking of Cloudflare IP addresses, seems to be confirmed by the text of the order. It’s only when attempting to reconcile LaLiga’s intellectual property rights with the general and indeed fundamental rights of third parties does the situation become unfathomable. So we asked LaLiga about something else instead.

Since everyone seems to be on the same page concerning the blocking of shared IP addresses, we put it to LaLiga that when compared to site-blocking measures that aim to avoid collateral damage (most blocking worldwide), knowingly ‘overblocking’ must introduce new risks. Did LaLiga conduct a risk assessment before it started to block Cloudflare in February?

“At LALIGA we are fully aware that any blocking measure —even when legally justified— requires a cautious and proportional approach,” the league responded.

“That is precisely why we do not act indiscriminately, and why all our blocking actions are backed by judicial resolutions that assess the proportionality and potential impact before being authorized. It’s relevant to highlight that these blockings are requested and implemented once there are clear proofs of piracy signals and content.”

The Importance of Definitions
LaLiga’s position as stated here appears to stand on its definition of proportional, indiscriminate, and its grounds for blocking. It seems safe to assume that the IP addresses it reports are indeed being used by pirate sites offering its content illegally. Grounds for blocking don’t get any better than that.

If we place a tight definition on the word indiscriminate, it’s reasonable to assume that the IP addresses identified by LaLiga are obtained scientifically rather than randomly pulled out of hat. So with indiscriminate set the side for a moment, we have ourselves a question.

When a rights holder with legal standing demonstrates a genuine need to block, has obtained authorization from a court, and has no other immediate options available:

Does a proportional approach to infringement include blocking an IP address when there’s a risk that dozens, hundreds, or thousands of innocent third parties are using it too?

Herein lies an even bigger problem, directly linked to the biggest question of all.

Does TV Subscription Data Reveal Any Positive Effects of Blocking?
Establishing whether blocking has a positive effect on sales often prompts charts showing fewer people visiting blocked sites. Data cited by CEO Javier Tebas indicates that blocking suppressed piracy on a grand scale.

“Weekend piracy has decreased by 40%. That doesn’t mean everyone has already switched to paid channels, but… how do we know this? Barcelona-Inter semifinal in Spain: 1,200,000 viewers and a certain amount of data usage. El Clásico, four days later, had a much larger audience—two million—and resulted in 60% less piracy in consumption. In other words, it made a difference: more viewers were seen, much less illegal consumption as a result of the blocks we’re implementing,” he explains.

If this is an accurate picture, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that such large percentages are likely to have some impact on Spanish football’s bottom line. The immediate problem concerns the type of blocking used to achieve these results and whether similar authority would be granted again.

That leads to another complication.

No Evidence to Show Overblocking
Back in March when Cloudflare and RootedCON separately attended court hoping to end LaLiga’s ability to block, neither was successful, in part due to evidential failures. In short, information presented to the court was deemed insufficient since it failed to show “specific, quantifiable damage to third parties.” It’s a theme that still interests LaLiga.

“LALIGA has implemented a dedicated mailbox for complaints related to the blocking measures. This mechanism allows any third party who believes they’ve been unintentionally affected by a blocking action to contact us directly, provide technical evidence, and request a review,” Laliga says.

“To date, we have not received any formal complaints through this channel nor received any formal complaint through other legal channels, which reinforces our position that the system is working as intended: focused, precise, and without collateral impact on legitimate services.”

At Soccerex Amsterdam last weekend, Javier Tebas said that while LaLiga’s critics describe the court order as “useless” and “make a lot of noise,” it’s an example of what can be done.

[The order is] dynamic and should be implemented country by country. It’s very important that rights holders, UEFA, and national leagues become more united and more convinced that this is the way forward.”