[HN Gopher] My game's server is blocked in Spain whenever there'...
___________________________________________________________________
My game's server is blocked in Spain whenever there's a football
match on
Author : greazy
Score : 388 points
Date : 2025-09-24 10:26 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45323856
| pmontra wrote:
| Yes, we know. Internet does not work in Spain when there are
| football matches.
|
| It would be more interesting to know if something is getting done
| about this. Other businesses must work, people must communicate,
| the very same Spanish state must keep working. Is there any
| protest with at least a slight amount of hope?
| Nyr wrote:
| Internet mostly works in Spain when there is a match: one can
| see traffic figures from the mayor exchange points: they are
| unaffected.
|
| Big businesses are unaffected, since LaLiga will quickly
| reverse any block that impacts popular websites and risks
| triggering significant public outcry.
|
| Most people in Spain don't care -- and many aren't even aware
| of the overly broad blocks.
|
| Cloudflare and RootedCON are challenging this in court, but it
| may take many years before a final outcome is reached.
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| Apparently it's not being communicated properly, or you don't
| actually read what you come across, because "Internet does not
| work in Spain when there are football matches" isn't true at
| all.
|
| Large parts are blocked, yes, as collateral damage. But it
| doesn't seem like they're completely switching it off, as
| obviously then there would be huge protests, mostly because
| people wouldn't be able to legally watch the games then!
| Telemakhos wrote:
| > the very same Spanish state must keep working
|
| "Vuelva usted manana."
| PlotCitizen wrote:
| > Internet does not work in Spain when there are football
| matches.
|
| There's a distinction between the above statement and the
| truth, which is that CloudFlare and other large CDNs do not
| work in Spain when there are football matches.
|
| Yes, it's not CloudFlare's fault in this instance, since I
| believe CloudFlare is not being notified to take action in real
| time. The blocking needs to happen quickly to block access to
| illegal streams of a live event. My understanding is that
| CloudFlare is largely out of the picture when this decision is
| happening, and CloudFlare is only taking the blame since that's
| what Twitch uses, which also can't react as quickly as La Liga
| wants.
|
| That being said there is a solution to this that helps protect
| from collateral as well as the decentralized open nature of the
| internet: moving away from those large CDNs
| array_key_first wrote:
| I think moving away from cloudflare is not a solution
| because:
|
| 1. You need CDNs for reasonable web performance, especially
| on mobile. Hitting your dedicated server for every static
| asset like images is going to bring latency through the roof.
|
| 2. Many companies don't have a physical presence in Europe,
| but are still able to achieve adequate performance because of
| CDNs.
|
| 3. If everyone just moves off of cloudflare, the blocking
| would just increase. Nothing would be solved if even bigger
| ranges are blocked, and probably even more stuff would break.
| chakintosh wrote:
| If only Tebas put this much energy into improving LaLiga's awful
| and outright shady refereeing and the rampant racism problem.
| Lucasoato wrote:
| In Italy something similar is happening: they have split the
| football game rights among different competitors, so that if you
| want to watch every game you have to spend >100EUR monthly
| (that's very high for our economy). To this, add the facts that
| there has been a major hit to illegal streaming piracy and that
| football games are getting extremely boring in our country
| (compared to the Premier League or our Serie A of twenty years
| ago). The major effect of this is that newest generations aren't
| giving a shit anymore about football, much less than their
| parents and grandparents. These people are trying to milk a cow
| that will be dry in less than 5 years, unless a major revolution
| happens in FIGC (Italian Football Federation).
| Hendrikto wrote:
| > they have split the football game rights among different
| competitors, so that if you want to watch every game you have
| to spend >100EUR monthly
|
| Same in Germany.
|
| > newest generations aren't giving a shit anymore about
| football
|
| Also the same in Germany.
|
| But I am not sure which direction the causality goes. Maybe
| people are less interested in football because of the
| shenanigans they are constantly pulling. Or maybe they try to
| squeeze the remaining audience because people are less
| interested. It may also not be related at all.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| >>Also the same in Germany.
|
| Just because you want something to be true to make your
| argument...doesn't make it true.
|
| Growth for memberships over the last few years are pretty
| strong especially in the under 16 age group with 9% yoy.[1]
|
| Attendance is also on a steady upwards trend.[2]
|
| The last EM also had new highs in viewership linear and
| streaming. As overall the non-linear media surrounding
| football is growing...[3]
|
| [1] https://www.dfb.de/news/dfb-mitgliederstatistik-mehr-
| schiris...
|
| [2] https://twocircles.com/gb/articles/2024-sports-
| attendance-ge...
|
| [3] https://www.agf.de/en/services/press/press-release/tv-
| bilanz...
| doublerabbit wrote:
| > Attendance is also on a steady upwards trend
|
| > Professional sports in Germany attracted more fans than
| ever before in 2024; a trend not limited to just football.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| Come on dude it's on the same page just below the initial
| summary which seems to be the only thing you bothered to
| read. It's even big bullet pointy for the attention
| starved...
|
| >> German men's football remains the most attended sport
| in the country by far. It is also a key driver of the
| overall attendance figures, with the top three
| professional leagues alone accounting for 46% of the
| growth since 2017/18.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| I'm bias.
|
| Born and raised in England, the nation of football, and I
| loathe football. The hooligan shenanigans we cause in
| other countries pisses me off. There is no respect.
|
| I got pushed on the subway the other day because of some
| local match. Some drunken twat thought I was someone who
| supported the rival opposition and nearly dragged me off
| the opposite escalator. I can't wait for football to die,
| I partake in sports too, I sword fence.
|
| While I can't vouch if it's the same for other countries
| where football isn't their thing. Generalizing for
| example Canada and Ice Hockey. But when I was in Canada
| coincidentally when national matches the vibe was holy
| different to that of Brits and football.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| Totally fine. Still no need to spread FUD/misinformation.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Misrepresentation, yes. Neither FUD nor Misinformation
| when it's quoted out of the article
| BoredPositron wrote:
| Next time just don't misrepresent stuff so I don't
| misrepresent you misrepresenting stuff. :)
| wobfan wrote:
| > Same in Germany.
|
| That's not right. Still expensive, but the dual abo for Sky
| Bundesliga + DAZN is 65EUR per month.[1]
|
| 1 https://www.sky.de/pakete-produkte/sky-dazn
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Still doesn't give you the full Champions League.
|
| I get where the leagues came from, but the result for the
| customers has been worse.
| ta12653421 wrote:
| 65EUR for watching _only_ football/soccer, Jesus :-D
| madaxe_again wrote:
| I think it's most likely that football is honestly a bit
| shit, and there are many better things to do for
| entertainment that don't require mortgaging a kidney to
| watch.
| NickC25 wrote:
| try going to germany, where you can get a season ticket at
| top club for a few hundred euros.
|
| i think Bayern Munich's cheapest season ticket is like $200
| at the current exchange rate. that's manageable. i've paid
| more than that for a single NFL game in OK-ish seats.
| pronik wrote:
| You won't get a season ticket for most clubs in your
| lifetime, the queues are enormous, so the price point
| really doesn't matter.
| pjmlp wrote:
| What pisses me off over here, is that for some strange
| reason, well not strange rather the whole thing that is being
| discussed, we hardly get any matches on the radio, whereas in
| the south this is a given, even in Spain.
|
| It is always some streaming service like Magenta Sport, and
| that's it.
| kwanbix wrote:
| Most leagues face the same issue: just one to three wealthy
| clubs dominate, winning around 70-80% of the time, which
| makes the competition less exciting. The German Bundesliga is
| one of the starkest examples: Bayern Munich has taken 16 of
| the last 20 titles.
| ta12653421 wrote:
| haha, andy why is that?
|
| Because of ridiculous transfer rules & markets - if these
| would be killed, there would be much more competition, and
| it was that way, 20-30+ years ago....
| kwanbix wrote:
| You can see this in most everything: 5 companies dominate
| IT, 3 companies dominate sodas, 3 companies dominate
| credit cards, etc. I think it is a byproduct of the way
| our current system works.
| rootsu wrote:
| On the other hand, Serie A started streaming all matches free
| on YouTube for SEA countries.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1nf7ghg/serie_a_ann...
| zwirbl wrote:
| So only a VPN is needed?
| riffraff wrote:
| the theory was that YT has pretty good VPN detection. But
| they stopped doing it immediately, so probably that didn't
| work out.
| average_r_user wrote:
| They pulled the plug on the project almost right away.
| Apparently, it had something to do with YouTube not being
| able to limit the live stream to Southeast Asian countries
| without it leaking to the rest of the world--where you'd need
| a pricey subscription to watch the game.
| rootsu wrote:
| Oh, I didn't know that they pulled the plug.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| So it looks like a self resolving problem? As a bonus football
| hooligans and football vandalism will disappear, and hopefully
| kids will be encouraged to do more creative activities than
| kicking a ball.
| zokier wrote:
| On the other hand kids (and adults) not getting enough
| exercise is a modern health crisis. More kids kicking a ball
| would be significant improvement over current status quo of
| kids staring at brainrot.
| NickC25 wrote:
| agree. im american and i see a bunch of youth in major
| cities who are clearly unhealthy.
|
| sport should be encouraged. i get that not everyone likes
| it, and not everyone will enjoy it (and even fewer will be
| good enough to actually enjoy it), but encouraging physical
| activity instead of playing on phones is a good thing.
|
| i was a nerd growing up (still am) and i sucked at sports
| (still do). i still enjoyed doing them and knew that
| physical activity was beneficial.
| aeve890 wrote:
| I agree with all you said except the last part.
|
| Sport is good and team sport is better. A "lifestyle guru"
| should know that. Kicking a ball is maybe the lowest entry
| barrier sport in many countries. I'm from latin america and
| here you grow playing futbol. Find a ball, gather your
| friends and you're ready to go.
| dnh44 wrote:
| you don't think kids should play sports? that seems like an
| unusual view and am kind of curious why you would think that.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| Kick a ball, throw a ball, hit a ball, jump over the ball,
| stick a ball somewhere. A ball, a stick, a ring, a board. I
| hate that football is the default sport and was forced
| myself to play it in my childhood.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Look, I disliked football for the reason that it made me
| an outcast. All males in my class in elementary school
| played football on a regular basis. I did not. It made me
| associate more with another guy (only 1, yeah) and girls.
| It made me just pick up a book and read while others were
| playing sports (happened to be football).
|
| ... but I did make myself an outcast as I was growing up
| as I would rather use my PC (for programming) than go
| outside.
| sofixa wrote:
| > I hate that football is the default sport
|
| It is the default sport because the barrier to entry is
| basically having a ball. Random rocks, backpacks,
| whatever you have can serve as the goalposts.
|
| Most other sports require other equipment too (volleyball
| needs the net, basketball the hoop, etc. etc.).
|
| It's also easy to understand, and being the most popular
| sport by far in most countries, allows for an easy
| appropriation to a community and sense of belonging.
|
| > was forced myself to play it in my childhood
|
| So you're just trauma dumping your childhood issues?
| riffraff wrote:
| also football can be played in basically any number, from
| 1:1 to 11:11, which means you can go out with a ball,
| meet one other kid and play, and random other kids can
| just join in.
|
| I've literally seen kids unable to speak with each other
| because of different languages able to join a match :)
|
| I was terrible at football as a kid so it's not like it
| did much for me, but one cannot deny how universal the
| game is.
| sofixa wrote:
| That's true. It's not unique to football (same can be
| applied to basketball and volleyball and etc.) but it's
| one more advantage.
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| > As a bonus football hooligans and football vandalism will
| disappear,
|
| You think these people would suddenly stop needing an outlet
| for their emotions? They'll find a different way of doing the
| same thing, around a different theme. If you've hanged out
| with people who are proud to be hooligans and ultras today,
| you'd see how removing football wouldn't get them to stop.
| watwut wrote:
| > You think these people would suddenly stop needing an
| outlet for their emotions?
|
| It is not an outlet for emotions that would need to be
| expressed similarly. It on itself creates emotions and
| social structures that make those expressions violent.
|
| > They'll find a different way of doing the same thing,
| around a different theme.
|
| Some of them will, some of them wont. They wont be in such
| a large pack in the same place at the same time. There will
| be less peer pressure to participate in these groups on
| young men and less validation.
|
| They will have much harder time to organize too.
| bilekas wrote:
| Given your username I wouldn't expect such harsh sentiment
| about people who enjoy playing football. I would prefer my
| kids play a sport they enjoy than sit on an iPad all day. But
| I'm not a lifestyle guru.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| European football is more about gambling, betting, and drug
| trafficking than about sport.
| sofixa wrote:
| Utter nonsense.
|
| It's about sport and community. Yeah, the Bulgarian
| football scene is dominated by the mafia and gambling,
| but that's the exception, not the norm.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Hooligans won't go away with football, they'll just find
| another outlet for their suppressed beta male rage and weak
| minded tribalism.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| > they have split the football game rights among different
| competitors, so that if you want to watch every game you have
| to spend >100EUR monthly
|
| It's the same for anime, and guess what, I just pirate and pay
| no one.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Yes, but the problem is that you want to watch football live,
| and LaLiga is harming lots of unrelated businesses with this
| approach.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Yeah, it's hilarious that, on the same planet, we have
| articles like "Nine things I learned in ninety years" come
| out, while the courts of an EU country give "LaLiga," which
| appears to be a private corporation (a football company),
| the authority to ban any IPs they want arbitrarily, for
| everyone, country-wide. People just don't care any more, if
| ever did.
| xg15 wrote:
| Couldn't they sue LaLiga for damages? Only because a court
| grants you some power you aren't absolved from the
| responsibilities that come with that power, or are you?
| piltdownman wrote:
| Cloudflare are
| https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2025/02/19/cloudflare-
| takes-...
|
| What complicates it is that the ISP, Telefonica, is also
| a Soccer rights-holder.
|
| How they haven't sued La Liga for defamation is beyond me
| though; publicly condemning Cloudflare's role in enabling
| piracy by knowingly protecting criminal organisations for
| profit.
|
| https://www.laliga.com/en-GB/news/official-statement-in-
| rela...
|
| Traditionally all soccer organisations from FIFA down are
| absolutely rife with corruption and other criminal
| activity. Best to view current events through that lense.
| For example, Fifa in 2015 were done for bribery, fraud
| and money laundering to corrupt the issuing of media and
| marketing rights for FIFA games in the Americas,
| estimated at $150 million.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_FIFA_corruption_case
| pfortuny wrote:
| Exactly: Telefonica is not only the rights holder, it is
| an ISP... Which seems a conflict of interests but you
| know, Spain is different!
| yorwba wrote:
| If you're a Cloudflare customer who suffers damages when
| LaLiga obtains a DNS block for Cloudflare IPs used for
| pirate streams, you'll have better chances suing
| Cloudflare for failing to provide the service you're
| paying them for (of course if you're on a free plan, you
| don't have much of a leg to stand on).
|
| One Cloudflare customer doing something illegal is only
| able to cause this much collateral damage because
| Cloudflare is set up so that taking down one customer
| requires taking down most of their infrastructure. But
| what works for DDoS protection doesn't work so well for
| legally mandated blocks. I think at some point Cloudflare
| will have to start kicking pirate streams off their
| platform faster if they want to stay up.
| Hazelnut2465 wrote:
| I'm not an ardent defender of Cloudflare by any means,
| but there is no grounds to sue Cloudflare. Their service
| is up. Their IP ranges are getting blocked by residential
| ISPs. How would that be Cloudflare's fault?
| charcircuit wrote:
| >How would that be Cloudflare's fault?
|
| Because the reason they are getting blocked is because of
| the actions Cloudflare is taking. If cloudflare would
| stop streaming these pirate broadcasts, the blocking
| would stop. These blocks are not just random.
| Krssst wrote:
| To be fair for anime you can get pretty good coverage with
| only crunchyroll and a minimal price. Though some significant
| shows often end up locked on random services unfortunately.
| teekert wrote:
| To get subs in my language I do have to go to go-anime.
| Which is btw pretty bad (sometimes you have to reload 30
| times before something starts, summaries are wrong, no
| chromecasting, etc.)
| maeln wrote:
| > To be fair for anime you can get pretty good coverage
| with only crunchyroll and a minimal price
|
| Depending on if crunchyroll is available in your region :)
| . And they have some truly awful subtitles for some shows.
| chii wrote:
| those pirated anime (esp. speed subs) mostly also just
| steal the crunchyroll subtitles as well, so if it was
| awful there, it will be also awful in the pirated
| version!
| kps wrote:
| Anime has long had a model where shows are 'free'
| (historically, on broadcast TV) and the money comes from
| sales of disks, manga, and other merchandise. (On the other
| hand, Japan has copyright laws that make the US look laid
| back.)
| XCSme wrote:
| Best way to watch sports now is to go to a bar that broadcasts
| it. If you have a drink, it only costs you 5EUR/match. Maybe
| you watch 5-6 matches a month, so still cheaper than
| 100EUR/month and you get drinks and service included.
| mlinhares wrote:
| 100 euros monthly is going to be very high anywhere, this is
| completely insane.
| piltdownman wrote:
| In Ireland it's closer to EUR200/month just for Soccer
| depending on who you support. As a result 1 in 5 homes in
| Ireland admit to having a 'dodgy box' - i.e. an android or SoC
| box capable of running an IPTV Subscription pirating live
| Digital TV and various streaming services. These are usually
| sold as an annual subscription for EUR50-100 in pubs and on
| places like facebook marketplace.
|
| The Irish Legal Community has already raised issues with how
| Sky is going about tracking down infringement at the user
| level, as they have an appalling record in this area and are
| likely to try and emulate the egregious situation in Spain to
| mitigate or retaliate.
|
| https://www.lawsociety.ie/gazette/top-stories/2025/june/dodg...
| https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0619/1519317-data-prote...
|
| What's even more ridiculous is the "3pm blackout" rule which
| prevents football matches from being shown on UK television
| between 14:45 and 17:15 on Saturdays when 50% of fixtures in
| the top two divisions are scheduled to kick off at 15:00. The
| policy was introduced in the 1960s to encourage fans to attend
| lower league games - and it remains in force even in the
| globalised streaming era. Sadly the rights-holders can't be
| bothered splitting the package for Ireland, so we get to pay
| more for SkySports and still have to buy additional services.
|
| In short, piracy is always a service issue. As a soccer fan
| going legit you'd possibly need to maintain a Sky Sports, BT
| Sport, TNT Sports and Premier Sports subscription. God forbid
| you want screen-casting support or 4K resolution.
|
| In Ireland you STILL can't purchase/watch UFC PPVs as one-offs,
| there isn't a way for you to watch it legally the next day or
| live as a single event. The only way would be to get a
| subscription to a big provider like SkyTV or NOW!
| ratelimitsteve wrote:
| Currently having this fight with hockey in the US. If I want to
| watch all of my team's games it's $65/mo split across 3
| separate services
| rascul wrote:
| NFL and NASCAR are similar.
| EbNar wrote:
| > newest generations aren't giving a shit anymore about
| football, much less than their parents and grandparents.
|
| These are good news, tbh.
| pronik wrote:
| What pisses me off is that they've said (in Germany) that they
| are trying to avoid monopolies and the rights need to go to
| multiple rights owners. Instead of giving the same rights to
| multiple broadcasters as would be normal for real non-
| monopolies, they split up the rights and gave each part to a
| single broadcaster. Which means, the full broadcasting rights
| are held by multiple parties, e.g. it's not a monopoly, but
| each broadcaster has a monopoly over his part of the cake.
| Which means if you want to have the whole cake as a fan, you
| need to pay the cartel, i.e. all broadcasters at once.
| bamboozled wrote:
| The main reason I don't watch any one it is because it's all
| locked away under expensive subscriptions and I don't really
| live in a place with great football matches, so yeah...I'd
| actually be into it if it was accessible, I just couldn't be
| bothered figuring out how to watch it, nor can I afford 100
| euroes a month.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Only boomers watch football (or any sports for that matter, or
| television for that matter). The problem will solve itself in
| time.
| Zealotux wrote:
| I live in Spain, that's absolutely not true, football is as
| popular as ever.
| trallnag wrote:
| Wow, that explains a lot :(
| betaby wrote:
| Unlikely, younger generation doesn't care.
| gdulli wrote:
| Even for the internet, this is stupid.
| pedrogpimenta wrote:
| My server is also unreachable: my website, my projects (which
| people use)... Because it's on some IP that Vercel uses.
| illusive4080 wrote:
| Mobile users should remove old from the url [0]. The old Reddit
| website does not load properly on my mobile device.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1np6kyn/my_games_s...
|
| Edit: commenters below made me realize that my extension
| StopTheMadness messed up old Reddit. Sorry
| QuantumNomad_ wrote:
| Old Reddit loads perfectly fine for me on iOS.
|
| What OS are you on and what is the specific problem you see
| when you try to load this Old Reddit link from OP?
| illusive4080 wrote:
| Your comment made me realize that it was an extension I'm
| using on my iPhone on iOS 26 that is causing the issue. The
| extension is StopTheMadness.
|
| I had an option called "Protect page zoom controls" which
| allows you to zoom on sites that disable zoom, but it breaks
| this website.
| SSLy wrote:
| while at it consider 'sinkit for old reddit'. makes it
| palatable, certainly superior to the shreddit app
| sebtron wrote:
| Works fine for me (Firefox on Android)
| piva00 wrote:
| For me it's much the opposite, I even use an extension on iOS
| Safari to redirect "www.reddit.com" to "old.reddit.com".
| givinguflac wrote:
| Stop trying to make new reddit happen, illusive Steve Huffman!
| /s
|
| Seriously though, seconded that old works great still on ios
| 26.
| asddubs wrote:
| I obviously don't agree with spain doing this, but I also have
| trouble feeling sorry for cloudflare, since they're also in the
| business of randomly blocking certain IPs from accessing half the
| internet
| dncornholio wrote:
| Cloudflare created a problem where everything is centralized.
|
| It's also, not that great. Even the most crude WordPress
| vulnerability scan requests aren't flagged or blocked. It seems
| most DDoS attacks may come through as well.
|
| Don't get me even started on the checkbox.
|
| It's a US data-hoarder.
| forinti wrote:
| And I thought things were bad in my country where all "sports"
| shows are about football and you can have 3 different FM stations
| broadcasting the same game and they'll discuss football even when
| there is nothing going on.
|
| It's a monothematic sporting desert.
|
| I'm glad I raised my kids oblivious to this football religion.
| iamzenitraM wrote:
| Some of us are tracking their blocking over at:
|
| https://hayahora.futbol https://tinyuptime.sconde.net
|
| It's not only Cloudflare, but also other not so tiny CDNs are
| being blocked - currently an entire Backblaze B2 region is
| blocked in 3 out of 5 ISPs (!).
|
| Particularly hurtful, the entire Cloudflare R2 is blocked during
| football matches so you can't pull Docker images or Ollama
| models.
| teekert wrote:
| Man, and I was already annoyed that my tax money went to extra
| police to prevent idiots from fighting and wrecking stuff
| around matches.
|
| I for one think that football streaming should be blocked when
| I'm pulling docker images ;)
| pzlarsson wrote:
| The amount of resources that goes into soccer in many
| countries is really astonishing. It can be seen as a modern
| equivalent to bread and circuses however.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
| swiftcoder wrote:
| You should probably check Github as well. We have consistent
| problems connecting to github during football matches
| FullMetalBitch wrote:
| My external home assistant doesnt work either, I have to use the
| VPN.
|
| Thanks Tebas.
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| I find it interesting that cloudflare is okay with those piracy
| sites getting its shared IPs blocked, while a couple of years ago
| they forced a casino to shell out for the enterprise plan and
| dedicated IPs to contain the fallout of banned IPs.
| iMerNibor wrote:
| I would assume they'd just decline and shut operations for that
| particular domain and create a new domain/account on cloudflare
| for the new site?
|
| Not sure how attached these sites are to their specific
| brand/domain (or if this is indirect where main sites link to
| other sites that host the video)
| lyu07282 wrote:
| They are not okay with it, they first in march tried to get it
| annulled that was rejected by the courts [1]. Now they are
| appealing in the constitutional court [2]. Spanish sources:
|
| [1] https://www.genbeta.com/actualidad/gol-laliga-a-
| cloudflare-j...
|
| [2] https://www.xataka.com/legislacion-y-derechos/bloqueos-ip-
| la...
|
| Cloudflare also said they are prepared to go all the way to EU
| courts if necessary.
| christkv wrote:
| I think companies need to start suing for damages when their
| business applications get blocked.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| I'm surprised it's still going on. There are things a southern
| Europe government shouldn't mess with, gas prices and football
| are part of them.
|
| Spanish are surprisingly quiet about that or they bought vpn en
| masse.
| nromiun wrote:
| That is wild. Which other country gives a private body the power
| to ban any IP address for the entire country?
| addandsubtract wrote:
| I mean, the power was given by the court, so you could argue
| that the ISPs are just following court orders.
|
| On the other hand, there's SpaceX which has the power to block
| an entire country from accessing the internet.
| nromiun wrote:
| You could only say that if the IP address list was given by
| the court to the ISPs.
| gpderetta wrote:
| Italy.
| npteljes wrote:
| Larger discussion here:
|
| "LaLiga's Anti-Piracy Crackdown Triggers Widespread Internet
| Disruptions in Spain"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45323856
| rock_artist wrote:
| In the reddit there's a link to another article related and
| there's response from Laliga (If I got it right):
|
| > Desde LaLiga tambien advierten que "aquellos clientes de
| Cloudflare que puedan sufrir bloqueos en sus webs, pueden
| dirigirse al email afectadoscloudflare@laliga.es con el fin de
| hacer llegar a Cloudflare que el contenido ilegal alojado en la
| IP de su misma web no tiene su autorizacion".
|
| So they eventually made an email to report if you're being
| affected by their blocking.
| erremerre wrote:
| What they do if receive such an email, it is to bully and
| threaten the owner of the webpage saying that their web is
| hosted in the same IP than pirates streaming and they would
| take legal action.
|
| Just, so that you know what is really going on.
| arximboldi wrote:
| But the intent of that email is not to unblock the IP, but to
| put pressure on Cloudfare to stop giving service to the
| allegedly pirate sites.
| aosaigh wrote:
| I might be naive, but this is absolutely outrageous. What laws
| allow a private company dictate what IPs can be banned across an
| entire country? Are the ISPs voluntarily cooperating or are they
| now all obliged to follow LaLiga requests?
| erremerre wrote:
| ISP with the right to football goes to court to report
| themselves (not a joke) about piracy happening in their
| networks.
|
| An old man judge which understand technology as much as I
| understand biochemistry (nothing) decides that they need to
| stop piracy, His solution is to give laliga the power to block
| those illegal streams, that all ISP must comply for the time
| that a match exist. The judge covers himself by saying, that
| the blockage can't affect third parties.
|
| All ISP happy comply. It does affect third parties.
|
| Cloudflare (third party) puts a recourse to say that it is
| affecting their business. The very same old man, decides, that
| is not going to proceed with that investigation.
|
| So cloudflare needs to to through a different slower legal
| procedure.
|
| Meanwhile, we have a company with the authority to block what
| they want thanks to corruption.
| aosaigh wrote:
| Thanks for the summary. I assume this will go up the chain of
| appeals etc. and on to the EU courts if needed?
| riffraff wrote:
| Tribunals. But notice that a possible outcome here is that
| _Cloudflare_ gets mandated by the same tribunals to perform the
| blocking of sport streaming sites.
|
| This is what's happening in Italy, for example.
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| Related (7 years ago):
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/8q1j0o/la_liga_uses...
|
| - Bars, pubs and other public establishments have to pay around
| 200EUR/month in order to show football on their TVs while the
| household package goes between 10 and 30EUR/month.
|
| - The official app, with over 10 million downloads, asks you for
| microphone and GPS permissions.
|
| - La Liga remotely activates the microphone and tries to detect
| if the sound matches with that of a football match. In addition,
| it uses the geolocation of the phone to locate exactly where the
| establishment is located. That way they can locate bars and other
| establishments where football is being pirated or showed without
| paying for the bar package.
|
| Still amazes me this just sort of went by and no one really
| seemed bothered. Absolutely insane.
| Phemist wrote:
| Wait, does that also mean bars have to police what people are
| watching on their phone, otherwise risking big fines?
|
| E.g. I go to the pub, have a drink and watch some random LaLiga
| match on my phone?
| piltdownman wrote:
| No, the bar pays something like 10x the price of a normal
| subscription to be able to publicly show live Sports as a
| draw for their customers.
|
| In UK/Ireland you can easily identify if the venue in
| question is paying for the commercial package as it will
| intermittently display a pint glass symbol in a bottom corner
| of the screen. Indeed, Sky investigators, who do spot checks,
| use it to quickly ensure that the pub has a valid pub
| contract and not a residential contract.
|
| https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/668952/why-pub-
| TV...
|
| La Liga are presumably muxing infrasonic audio into their
| residential streams to try and:
|
| (a) watermark the residential account(s) used to provide the
| streaming services so they can prosecute the providers
|
| (b) Detect commercial usage of residential accounts used in
| piracy to prosecute the venues, by listening out via the App.
|
| They could presumably get around GDPR by virtue of the fact
| they're only listening and recording audio out of human
| audible range, and only for identification of copyright
| infringement as per the TOS of the La Liga App.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| I don't believe that's what OP is asking, they mean to ask
| about the following scenario:
|
| 1. Someone sitting next to you in a bar is playing a match
| on their phone, but the bar is not.
|
| 2. Your phone has the app installed and hears the match.
|
| 3. La Liga sues the bar?
| moduspol wrote:
| Presumably then La Liga investigates the bar in-person.
| Or waits until X reports have occurred over Y duration
| and THEN have someone investigate in-person.
| progbits wrote:
| You are giving them a lot more credit than their behavior
| deserves.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I doubt it. They're not going to take a case to court for
| a single hit because it would be so easily dismissed.
|
| They would have higher priority situations where dozens
| of phones hit at the same time in the same bar.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >In UK/Ireland you can easily identify if the venue in
| question is paying for the commercial package as it will
| intermittently display a pint glass symbol in a bottom
| corner of the screen. Indeed, Sky investigators, who do
| spot checks, use it to quickly ensure that the pub has a
| valid pub contract and not a residential contract.
|
| That seems as if it would be so easy to fake...
| fragmede wrote:
| Does it cost more less time/effort for the bar to fake it
| though? The price of 200EUR/month above seems low enough
| to just pay it.
| smelendez wrote:
| I think that's it.
|
| I assume the pint glass pops up at intervals that the
| investigators would know and the general public would
| not, so you'd need some kind of central service with
| someone watching the commercial stream and showing/hiding
| the pint glass at the right intervals. In which case it
| would make more sense to operate a central service just
| pirating the commercial stream, which I'm sure does
| happen and does get shut down.
| 1317 wrote:
| The pint glass also changes colour
| outside2344 wrote:
| There has to be a EU privacy violation in there somewhere
| right? Or does that not count for giant EU companies?
| whatevaa wrote:
| GDPR is enforced by country itself and this racket is
| supported by government, so... You would need to sue whole
| country.
| Angostura wrote:
| It's not personal data.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| GPS of your phone and the audio from your phone?
|
| How is that not personal data?
| bilekas wrote:
| It's not identifiable info maybe ?
| eptcyka wrote:
| It is.
| bilekas wrote:
| Are we sure ? I'm not disputing it, but is geo location
| alone as a data point covered GDPR ?
|
| I'll have to look that up, but as someone else said it's
| only enforced at EU member state level, however there is
| another central oversight to ensure it's enforced.
| Fargren wrote:
| Yes. Personal data under GDPR is "any information which
| are related to an identified or identifiable natural
| person". If it's data about a specific person, it's
| personal data, it's a very straightforward definition.
| Businesses need either informed consent or legitimate
| interest to store or process it.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| Not if you have no possible way to identify the person to
| whom it is related (this includes server logs etc).
| Theoretically, an event sent to a server with some GPS
| co-ordinates, with no metadata and no logs stored on the
| server at all _could_ perhaps be found not to be
| personally identifiable.
|
| This is almost certainly a thought experiment though, the
| amount of engineering effort required to ensure no logs
| of any kind could result in deriving the IP address of
| the user would be high, and they're probably not doing it
| (even if they are actually not sending any identifying
| information directly).
|
| You might also find that you have to take special care to
| avoid creating circumstances that allow inference of
| personal information. For example, sampling every night
| at 11pm, you're very likely to be able to determine an
| address or approximate location of the subscribers home.
| jamiecurle wrote:
| The escape hatch with all personal data processing is
| "legitimate interest". Consent is a big part of it, but
| an industry with sufficiently deep legal pockets would
| likely go down the route of "legitimate interest" if
| cornered.
|
| I'm not a legal professional. I just work next to this
| stuff.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| I think a lot would depend on whether they do any kind of
| on-device processing to determine whether the audio is
| likely to be a football match or not. I _think_ they
| could successfully argue that data processed on your
| phone and not shared with them is processed _by you_ ,
| and then they could argue that the data that _is_ shared
| falls under legitimate interests and would be
| proportionate, and pass a balancing test.
|
| IANALEither
| ahtihn wrote:
| That's not what legitimate interest is supposed to mean
| though.
|
| Legitimate interest is about collection of data necessary
| to operate your service.
|
| Listening to detect if someone in a user's surrounding is
| showing a match without license has nothing to do with
| the function of the application. There's no legitimate
| interest there.
| mvieira38 wrote:
| Legally, you mean? Because I'd say most reasonable people
| would say a literal wire on your phone is pretty personal.
| Location is PID too if they store the data at all
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| They'll just say they have a "legitimate" interest in the
| data.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I would never agree to this. But it doesn't strike me as
| particularly unethical, either. So long as both parties
| understand what they're agreeing to, this seems perfectly fine.
|
| If, for example, the NFL ever did this, I would just not watch.
| saghm wrote:
| I'm not sure about other sports, but for the MLB, there are
| some very strange policies that make it difficult to watch
| games even if you want to pay for it, mostly stemming from
| the local broadcasters of the games. Even if you sign up for
| the subscription service to stream games, they'll "black out"
| the games that they expect you to be able to watch by getting
| a cable subscription, which not only is ridiculous (since one
| on of the main selling points for streaming is to not have to
| pay for a bundle of things you mostly don't want to be able
| to get the few things you do), but it assumes that people
| will never be traveling and unable to watch the games locally
| even if they _do_ normally have access to it. My dad
| frequently travels for work, and he pays for the streaming
| service mostly to be able to watch Phillies games despite
| living in the Boston area, but the blackout rules mean that
| he can 't even watch the Red Sox games with the streaming
| service if he's traveling outside of Boston. He also can't
| watch the Phillies games when they play the Red Sox in
| Boston, which is mostly fine, but it's still a little weird
| since he'll be have to watch the Red Sox broadcast (and
| therefore their commentators) rather than the Phillies one
| he's used to seeing for their games. The games that are given
| special slots on ESPN also tend to be blacked out for
| _everyone_ , so that also causes issues for people wanting to
| stream them even if it's not a local game. The whole model
| seems to be more about trying to railroad people in paying
| for a less convenient, more expensive product even when they
| actively want to pay for something that's actually available
| but artificially limited. I don't get why anyone would be
| surprised that people just turn to "piracy" when things work
| like this.
| hearsathought wrote:
| Why doesn't he just save himself the time, money and hassle
| and just watch the highlights or highlight clips.
|
| I understand why the NFL is going the stream route given
| how popular it is already. They can afford to inconvenience
| people. But MLB has been stagnant or declining for so long.
| You'd think they'd make their content more accessible to
| grow the fan base.
| saghm wrote:
| I think he enjoys having the entire game on in the
| background. He's partially switched over to listening to
| the radio broadcasts for games, which apparently are
| often provided online as well (which makes sense, given
| nothing really needs to change in terms of how they make
| money to provide it online instead of via a radio
| station).
|
| What's weird to me is that the MLB does seem to genuinely
| be trying to make changes in terms of gameplay to try to
| keep relevant (especially around reviews for on-field
| calls, but also in terms of some of the changes in recent
| years that were controversial but seem to have produced
| meaningful results in reversing some of the creep in how
| long it takes for games to finish), and my understanding
| is that they basically were the first major sports league
| in the US to invest in streaming technology, to the point
| where I remember reading that the NHL app (and maybe some
| of the others) were originally developed and maintained
| by MLB's programmers as well. I'm not sure how they've
| managed to fall so far behind in terms of streaming
| experience; the most apparent difference is that the
| baseball season is over ten times as many games, which
| presumably could have some sort of effect on things, but
| my naive expectation would be that it would incentive
| having a stable infrastructure for this even more. Maybe
| it's just a matter of them being able to get away with
| blocking some games because there are still so many
| others that don't get blocked during the rest of the
| season? With only 16 games in a regular season, blocking
| even one of them might just be something viewers are less
| willing to put up with.
| toast0 wrote:
| > I'm not sure how they've managed to fall so far behind
| in terms of streaming experience
|
| It's because they need to keep the broadcasters and the
| teams happy and broadcasters want to have exclusive
| content. In some markets, teams want local blackouts to
| help get butts in seats.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| The whole copyright institution seems pretty unethical to me.
| It's wild that someone can own the royalties to a particular
| piece of content for 70+ years after the original creator
| dies (at least that's the law in the US, I assume similar
| elsewhere), and that the creator can unilaterally name his
| price for licenses to that content (you can't even know if
| you want the content without first paying for a license to
| consume it) and then if you want to put the content into a
| different format (for example, if you own an HD Blu-Ray and
| want to put it on a hard drive) you effectively have to pay
| for a _new license_ for the same content. This is just
| scratching the surface of the ethical bankruptcy associated
| with intellectual property.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| And this is how free markets result in dystopia.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _In addition, it uses the geolocation of the phone to locate
| exactly where the establishment is located._
|
| How much do GPS/Galileo/GNSS jammers go for nowadays?
| inasio wrote:
| In days of prison time?
| distances wrote:
| > - Bars, pubs and other public establishments have to pay
| around 200EUR/month in order to show football on their TVs
| while the household package goes between 10 and 30EUR/month.
|
| This is common in Europe in general, also for copyrighted
| music. If your establishment wants to play recorded music, even
| just playing the radio or Spotify on the background, a
| copyright royalty fee has to be paid.
|
| Applies to all venues and events. Bars, restaurants, grocery
| shops, barbers, sports events, concerts, taxis, lounges,
| everything with an audience.
|
| I don't want to say it's the same everywhere in the EU, but I
| have always assumed it's a common concept in most western
| countries at least.
| Aurornis wrote:
| This is common in many countries around the world.
|
| I'm sure the prices have gone up since that comment, but
| 200EUR/month actually seems very reasonable for a commercial
| bar that shows sporting events. That's let's than 7EUR/day
| and would be more than covered by the first group of people
| walking in the door and buying a round of drinks.
|
| I don't approve of the microphone activation spying stuff or
| the ridiculous internet blocking. However it's also kind of
| bizarre that it reached this point when the monthly fees for
| bar owners were such a trivial amount.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| is it different from turning on radio?
| prophesi wrote:
| On its own, nothing seems out of the ordinary. It's the
| extremes that La Liga takes to ensure they're getting that
| 200EUR/m that makes it insane.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Do bars in the US just show matches on a residential cable tv
| connection?
| fyrn_ wrote:
| Yup
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Small bars, yes. There are limits to the square footage,
| and the number and size of TVs - above which you need to
| purchase a commercial license.
| ta12653421 wrote:
| What about this music from these free pages which are
| flooding the internet? There is plenty of royality free
| music? (e.g. used by youtubers?)
| veeti wrote:
| In most EU countries private copying levies are paid to the
| copyright mafia any time you purchase a hard drive, printer
| or even a blank cassette. Because you know, you might copy
| something using it.
| vintermann wrote:
| Also, blank media levies in no way give you _permission_ to
| do what you 're paying a tax the biggest rights owners for.
| create-username wrote:
| yeah but I paid the full levy so I will download all the
| things that aren't illegal and hunting and gathering for
| free films isn't illegal
| bn-l wrote:
| Corruption
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Private corporations acting like police, engaging in illegal
| wiretapping and eavesdropping at massive scales to detect and
| punish crimes as defined by themselves.
|
| We truly are living in a cyberpunk dystopia.
| kulahan wrote:
| It's clearly not illegal.
| array_key_first wrote:
| That's what makes it a dystopia
| cestith wrote:
| Often it's not. Back when Sony put a Windows rootkit on
| autorun on music CDs just in case someone wanted to rip a
| FLAC, that was a felony violation of the CFAA in the US.
| The big difference is consent. If I use your app to watch a
| game and the conditions of using your app include giving
| you microphone access, that's legal. If you breach my phone
| to turn on the mic and listen to me, that's illegal.
| create-username wrote:
| of course you can tip your favourite bar to the football police
| https://laligabares.com/denuncias/
| diego_moita wrote:
| As a Brazilian I say: the world would be a much better place
| without football.
|
| It seems that being a crook is a requirement to be on the
| management of any national football league, from Brazilian CBF to
| FIFA and La Liga.
| NickC25 wrote:
| anything that encourages the youth to get outside and play
| makes the world a better place almost by default.
|
| god forbid they exercise, they should be indoors studying or
| playing on their phones 100% of the time. </s>
|
| maybe the world would be a better place without football
| hooligans, sure. but without a sport that billions love and
| play? no.
| gloosx wrote:
| Football is wild. Imagine countries and governments collect
| taxes.
|
| Then they use the taxes to buy petroleum products from Qatar.
|
| Then Qatar spends EUR262 millions on a single football player and
| gazillions on a European club, which is at EUR889 million loss
| over the last five years
|
| In the end, who is paying for it all? Ordinary people ultimately
| foot the bill - whether through higher energy prices, taxes, or
| the opportunity cost of that money leaving the productive economy
| - while the football circus rolls on.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| > Then they use the taxes to buy petroleum products from Qatar.
|
| This isn't how the energy market works.
| gloosx wrote:
| Fair point, governments don't literally wire tax money
| straight to Qatar for oil.
|
| But whether it is at the pump or through subsidies, it is
| still ordinary people who end up carrying the cost -- and
| that money gets recycled into football vanity projects.
| fluoridation wrote:
| I mean, if you're going to consider indirect transactions
| too, _eventually_ every part of the economy ends up
| affecting every other part. That money that goes into those
| projects doesn 't just vanish, it gets spent and flows back
| out into the economy.
| bamboozled wrote:
| I think you know what they mean...fuel is subsidized by
| the government, and Qatar winds up with the subsidized
| money. Need it be more complicated?
| gloosx wrote:
| From a wider perspective it does vanish in terms of
| productive value: billions go into inflated transfers and
| club losses that generate little beyond spectacle,
| instead of going into things that improve lives (cheap
| energy, infrastructure, innovation, public goods)
| fluoridation wrote:
| I honestly don't understand what you mean.
|
| >billions go into inflated transfers and club losses that
| generate little beyond spectacle
|
| "Club losses"? If you pay a football player 100k to play
| a match, even if the point of the match is nothing but
| spectacle, that money doesn't evaporate. The player will
| spend it on the economy. What else could he possibly do
| with it besides spending it or tossing it in a fire? If a
| club spends 10M on something entirely frivolous -- say, a
| giant concrete football -- that money also doesn't simply
| disappear, it's used to pay the people who will make the
| raw materials and the people who will design and build
| the thing. Only individuals and distinct entities lose
| money. An economy never does.
| gloosx wrote:
| The point is _how_ it circulates. If EUR200M goes into a
| transfer fee, it is locked into a prestige loop instead
| of funding productive investment, it gets trapped in a
| cycle that reinforces inequality and produces very little
| outside of image-building. The recipients of this money
| are a tiny elite which they then spend mostly in elite
| consumption loops: luxury real estate, yachts, exclusive
| services, tax havens.
|
| Speaking capitalist language, overinflated football
| spending is a _misallocation of capital_ on _low-return
| assets_ which creates _market distortions_.
| fluoridation wrote:
| >luxury real estate, yachts, exclusive services, tax
| havens
|
| All of that eventually has to flow back into, as you'd
| put it, non-elite segments of the economy. What, do you
| think shipyard workers eat yatchs? There's no subnetwork
| in the economy where money flows in and never comes back
| out. That just doesn't exist.
| bluecalm wrote:
| Sounds like a good deal for Europeans and a terrible for
| Qataris. Europeans get the oil, Qataris get to brand football
| stars and make decisions at some clubs.
| casey2 wrote:
| Obvious corruption. Shameful
| yeasku wrote:
| Ipv6 is not blocked. O2 gives me ipv6.
| otikik wrote:
| Love the sport, hate the business.
| bashy wrote:
| Will be very similar to this type of abuse report someone got on
| their Hetzner server (even though it had no piracy activity);
|
| > On 27 Nov 23:27, operations@friendmts.com wrote: To whom it may
| concern:
|
| Our reference: PRB-XXXXXX Security Code:
| 2x364371x-x45x-59x2-8760-32x46276790
|
| Access to the IP address detailed below has been blocked in the
| United Kingdom by court order.
|
| The block will apply to: IP Address: 95.217.118.31 For all
| Premier League Match Periods Until: 07 Dec 2020
|
| Further notifications will not be sent about this IP address
| unless and until further infringements are detected after the
| date and time indicated above, though the IP address will remain
| subject to blocking until then. If your organisation is planning
| to reallocate this IP address to another customer before the date
| listed above, please notify us at ipallocation@friendmts.com with
| the appropriate information so that we can consider releasing the
| IP from subsequent blocking.
|
| A copy of the court order, which was obtained by the Football
| Association Premier League Limited is available here:
| https://www.fmtsoperations.com/HC-2017-002013-ORDER.PDF
|
| Any affected server operator or hosting provider has the right to
| apply to the Court to discharge or vary the Order.
| ericzawo wrote:
| This is the most Spanish thing of all time.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Mandatory siesta.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| I see 2 nasties here:
|
| On one hand, this is a clear overreach of the courts: They gave a
| private party the right to censor random sources without judicial
| oversight.
|
| On the other hand, the courts still need to judicate in their
| respective countries. If cloudflare says: We're in another
| country so the courts cant make us block illegal things, well,
| the courts have to overblock or they lose the ability to enforce
| their decisions.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Some decisions do not need to be possible. No amount of court
| judgements will make pigs fly. Perhaps it is about time we took
| the decisions of what may or may not be on the internet outside
| the reach of idiots.
|
| We. You, me, readers here, are the people who are in charge of
| design decisions for future systems and networks. When
| designing them, favor reliability, resilience,
| decentralization! Make it impossible to take things down! Let
| them pass useless judgements and make toothless rules. Design
| so that those judgements and rules apply no more to the
| internet of tomorrow than they do to the sun, moon, and stars.
| polski-g wrote:
| Lots of these sorts of European problems could be fixed if
| Cloudflare+Google+Apple+Microsoft colluded to block an entire
| country from all their services at once until it is resolved. And
| then move on to the next country, and the next.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >they randomly ban cloudflare IP ranges.
|
| It's not random. Many pirate sites use Cloudflare and Cloudflare
| does not do a good enough job of taking them down which enables
| pirating of the sport broadcast.
|
| Routing your game traffic through a CDN is not normal anyways.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| _LaLiga 's Anti-Piracy Crackdown Triggers Widespread Internet
| Disruptions in Spain_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45323856
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