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WED 24 AUG 2022 | AUDIOVISUAL
LaLiga and Movistar Plus+ will be able to block pirate websites without court order
LaLiga and Movistar Plus+ will be able to block pirate websites without court order
  • LaLiga and Movistar Plus+ win a joint lawsuit to prevent piracy of LaLiga content.
  • Movistar Plus+ has also won another individual ruling against the piracy of audiovisual content on the Movistar Plus+ platform.
  • Both rulings enable Movistar Plus+ to block pirate content domains on a weekly basis without the need to go to court and will be in force until the 2024/2025 season.

LaLiga and Movistar Plus+ have won a jointly filed lawsuit which enables them to block weekly access to domains that facilitate the piracy of LaLiga content.

As detailed in the ruling dated 25 July 2022, this protective measure is necessary given that "numerous cases of digital piracy have been detected that flagrantly affect the exploitation of its rights," through the use of "different models of piracy of audiovisual content on the Internet (especially sports content)."

The judicially authorised measure is called "dynamic blocking" as it will not be applied on a one-off basis, but on a weekly basis with the new identification of URLs, domains and IP addresses, without the need for prior notification to the court.  

The ruling will be in force until the 2024/2025 season and came into effect the week of 8th August, before the start of the LaLiga season.

This court order is in line with two previous orders, dated 11 February 2020 and 21 December 2021, which enabled a similar protection mechanism. It represents another step forward in the consolidation of a mechanism that reinforces the legal tools to combat piracy with regard to the sustainability of the exploitation of LaLiga content. 

Individual ruling in favour of Movistar Plus+

Movistar Plus+, meanwhile, has won another similar ruling ensuring that telecommunications operators of Internet access in Spain must block weekly access to domains that facilitate the piracy of audiovisual content on the Movistar Plus+ platform.

This has been agreed by the courts with the aim of "achieving the blocking of those web pages through which intellectual property rights are being infringed." 

In the ruling, which is valid for three sporting seasons, until the end of the 2024-2025 season, it states that the blocking must be carried out within a maximum period of three hours from the notification of the new list, which does not need to be submitted via the courts.

According to the data collected by the Observatory of piracy and consumption habits of digital content 2020, prepared by the independent consultancy GfK, in 2020 there were 5.239 billion illegal accesses to content worth €30.892 billion, with a damage to the sector of €2.416 billion. Eight out of 10 consumers believe that the most effective measure against piracy is to block access to websites with illegal content. The elimination of piracy would create 130,318 direct and indirect jobs. 

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