RootedCON: Pirate IPTV Blocking Appeal Accepted as Crisis Continues
As Spain's pirate site-blocking crisis persists for the fourth consecutive week, LaLiga's decision to block Cloudflare continues to affect innocent internet users and websites. Cloudflare took legal action last week hoping to stop LaLiga in its tracks. In a parallel process, cybersecurity group RootedCON has asked a court to strike out LaLiga's blocking authority. Meanwhile, RootedCON says moves are underway to undermine the authority of their lawyer.
ballnetblock Under pressure from widespread IPTV piracy freeloading on the league’s live matches, LaLiga chief Javier Tebas warned that he would do whatever was necessary to protect the sport.
Whether Tebas’ intent was taken as seriously as it should’ve been is difficult to weigh. A reputation for being fearless and uncompromising can be an asset in top tier football, but would it boost asymmetric blocking warfare against mostly anonymous pirates?
It didn’t need to, and the warning signs had been visible for months.
Like other major rightsholders around Europe, LaLiga’s reliance on disruption through site-blocking measures found a natural opponent in an internet company dedicated to connectivity. Central to Cloudflare’s mission is shielding internet users from online attacks and, by extension, helping the internet become more resilient.
Frustrated that LaLiga couldn’t effectively block pirate sites behind Cloudflare, the focus shifted from pirate sites to the companies accused of helping them stay online. Details of private negotiations may never emerge, but a warning from LaLiga that it would block Cloudflare if necessary, wasn’t just rhetoric.
Roughly a month ago, LaLiga started doing just that and hasn’t stopped since, affecting thousands of innocent websites and internet users unwittingly dragged into someone else’s dispute. Cloudflare said LaLiga understood the risks, but blocked Cloudflare anyway.
Cloudflare then took the matter to court, the outcome is yet to be determined. LaLiga says it has judicial backing for the blockade, so Cloudflare must take the blame for the collateral damage.
RootedCON Decides That Enough is Enough
The RootedCON 2025 event should be getting underway right now in Madrid. Running from March 6th to 8th, RootedCON describes itself as one of the flagship cybersecurity events in the Spanish-speaking world, a meeting point for “professionals, organizations, experts, and innovators in the field of cybersecurity, ethical hacking, and technology.”
“The goal of RootedCON is to create a space where professionals and enthusiasts can share experiences, discuss the latest developments in the cybersecurity sector, and address the main current vulnerabilities,” the organizers explain.
Credit: RootedCON
rooted-con
Few vulnerabilities are able to cause the type of persistent disruption being experienced in Spain right now and, like Cloudflare, RootedCON want it to stop.
Blocking Order “Obtained Through Legal Tricks”
During the last couple of weeks, RootedCON has been gathering evidence from those negatively affected by the blocking of Cloudflare; people having difficulty reaching legal websites, people who run legal websites whose visitors face disruptions, and anyone in between.
Posting to X this week, RootedCON published its own assessment of the scale of the disruption.
/RootedCon/X
rooted-con-1
The evidence supports an application filed by RootedCON at Commercial Court number 6 of Barcelona. A decision handed down by the court in December 2024 reportedly authorizes LaLiga to instruct local ISPs to block pirate IPTV providers. It’s further claimed that at LaLiga’s discretion, ‘facilitating’ services such as Cloudflare may also be blocked, should that become necessary. The court signed off on the request, noting that uninvolved third parties would suffer no harm.
“In a context in which digital freedoms are threatened, RootedCON now informs that it has filed an incident of nullity in the Commercial Court number 6 of Barcelona, against judgment no. 310/2024, dated December 18, 2024, obtained through legal tricks, which is used by La Liga to force operators to block and restrict access to the Internet in its fight against “piracy” at the request of the football company,” a RootedCON announcement reads.
“This ruling, and the way in which it is being used, violates fundamental rights and limits free access to information, a right that we consider non-negotiable.”
“RootedCON, along with other affected companies, believes that the conflict that is the cause of this ruling has been used to justify actions that limit access to content on the Internet. At RootedCON, we believe that this constitutes a manifest injustice against freedom of expression and information in the digital age that should not be subject to judicial protection,” the statement continues.
“We are firmly committed to defending a free, open and uncensored Internet, in which innovation and free communication are essential values, and, in compliance with our duties, our fundamental rights recognized by the Constitution are respected.”
With reports circulating that customers of Telefonica-owned Movistar have been blocked from accessing the websites of LaLiga football teams – due to LaLiga-authorized blocking, sounds like a commercial disaster.
That the block was executed by Telefonica-owned Movistar against Cloudflare, but then negatively impacted their own customers, may be unprecedented. The fact that a Telefonica division sponsors the RootedCON event underway right now, should make for a couple of interesting days on the booth.
rootedcon-1
A site-blocking crisis that boiled over a month ago and still hasn’t run out of steam, now appears to be heading towards further escalation.
Posting to X, RootedCON say that their lawyer (who specializes in internet matters) has come under attack for representing famous Spain-based streaming site, RojaDirecta. There’s more to it than just that, details here for those interested.
