The blocking of IP addresses at the request of LaLiga reaches Congress

The parliamentary spokesperson for Izquierda Unida, Enrique Santiago, and the Sports spokesperson in the Congress of this formation, Nahuel González, have registered an initiative in which they ask the Government for explanations about the measures adopted to supervise "technically and legally" the blockades requested by LaLiga “with the excuse of pursuing piracy.”

According to the political party, although blockades normally take place by virtue of judicial resolutions, their technical execution “is carried out in a indirect, broad and bit it needs, which has led to an over-blocking phenomenon that affects thousands of legitimate websites completely unrelated to any infringement of intellectual property rights." Izquierda Unida supports its claim in the "severe internet outages” that have occurred in Spain during the matches, information endorsed by operators such as Cloudflare.

Given this situation, IU has requested question the government on the measures they plan to take to ensure that the implementation of IP blocks complies with the principles of “proportionality, necessity and minimal impact on third parties"required by the Spanish and European legal system. Likewise, they propose that it be detailed if "there is any transparency, control or accountability mechanism that allows citizens and affected service providers to know, challenge or repair improper blockages.”

Enrique Santiago y Nahuel Gonzalez They have also shown their "special concern" about the fact that "despite the proven impact on fundamental rights and the normal functioning of the Internet, LaLiga has not commented on the matter, nor has it assumed any responsibility for the blocking of countless unrelated websites, going so far as to suggest that its commercial interests should prevail over the right of Internet users to access an open and functional network during matches." For this reason, the text registered by IU also asks about “what data the Government has on the impact of these massive blockades on the reduction of digital piracy” and if “it plans to adopt alternative or complementary measures that allow us to reconcile the rights of Internet users and the prosecution of digital piracy.”