While LaLiga, Spain’s premier soccer league, continues its broad blocking of live pirated sports streams, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince seems frustrated that the blockade has also hit millions of innocent websites and “prays no one dies.”
According to LaLiga itself, around 3,000 IP addresses are blocked every weekend. It remains to be seen whether the blocking will continue now that the 2024/2025 season is officially over.
The organization seems confident and almost regularly points out that the campaign has been effective. However, critics aren’t so sure – for quite some time now, thousands of websites that have nothing to do with online piracy of illegal streams have also been blocked.
That’s because LaLiga’s measures target Cloudflare infrastructure, which not only serves hundreds of pirate sites but millions of other perfectly legitimate addresses, too.
Observers complain that the collateral damage is by now obvious, and that overblocking – even if most probably unintentional and only occurring when LaLiga matches take place – needs to be stopped.
Those critics now include Cloudflare’s CEO, Matthew Prince. On X, he weighed in with his assessment of the current situation when asked about the LaLiga controversy.
“A huge percentage of the internet sits behind us, including small businesses and emergency resources in Spain,” Prince explained.
“The strategy of blocking broadly through ISPs based on IPs is bonkers because so much content, including emergency services content, can be behind any IP. The collateral damage is vast and is hurting Spanish citizens from accessing critical resources.”
A huge percentage of the Internet sits behind us, including small businesses and emergency resources in Spain. We've always been happy and willing to work with rights holders in conjunction with judicial bodies to protect their content. We have a clear process that works around…
undefined Matthew Prince 🌥 (@eastdakota) May 20, 2025
Last December, a Spanish judge authorized LaLiga to block Cloudflare’s shared IP addresses to combat piracy.
The firm asked the court to overturn the order, but their request was denied, with the judge stating there was no evidence that the blocking campaign was causing any damage.
However, according to Prince, it’s only a matter of time before a “Spanish citizen can't access a life-saving emergency resource because the rights holder in a football match refuses to send a limited request to block one resource versus a broad request to block a whole swath of the internet.”
Prince then added that when lives are harmed and LaLiga decides to be more flexible, policymakers will make the right decision: “Until then, it’ll be up to users to make politicians clear on the risk. I pray no one dies.”
Last December, a Spanish judge authorized LaLiga to block Cloudflare’s shared IP addresses to combat piracy.
According to Prince, though, Cloudflare is by no means refusing to help LaLiga out – piracy can indeed be frustrating to the rights holders. But the organization needs to use the available process, he said.
“We’ve always been happy and willing to work with rights holders in conjunction with judicial bodies to protect their content. We have a clear process that works around the world to do that,” said Prince.
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