Information Note

LALIGA and Telefónica Audiovisual Digital (TAD) have been notified of several orders from Commercial Court No. 1 of Córdoba by which the “inaudita parte” precautionary measures requested against NordVPN and ProtonVPN are granted, recognizing the responsibility of these technological intermediaries in the process of piracy of LALIGA matches.

In this way, both companies must immediately implement in their internal systems the appropriate measures to make it possible for the IP addresses provided by the claimants, in which the illegal transmission of protected audiovisual content has been verified, to be inaccessible from Spain. A measure, moreover, of a dynamic nature and against which there is no appeal.

These orders recognize that VPN (Virtual Private Network, by its acronym in English) service providers are technological intermediaries that fall within the scope of application of the European Digital Services Regulation and, therefore, are subject to the requirement to prevent at least the commission of infringements under their infrastructures.

In turn, the orders identify how VPN systems prove to be a suitable means, “highly effective and accessible to generate the possibility of access to content not accessible in certain geographic points,” distorting the real geographic location of online access, and facilitating “access to websites that broadcast protected content illegally.” What is more, the orders highlight how the defendant companies acknowledge and even advertise “that their system is excellent at evading restrictions.”

Hence these precautionary measures to prevent these service providers “from contributing so that in Spain the access restrictions to certain websites that various Spanish judicial authorities have already decreed are evaded,” in clear reference to the December 2024 judgment of Commercial Court No. 6 of Barcelona.

For their part, the orders require LALIGA and Telefónica Audiovisual Digital to “preserve sufficient digital evidence of the unlawful transmission of the protected contents” that they notify to the defendants, thus supporting the reliability of the procedures that LALIGA had already been using by virtue of that same December 2024 judgment, among others.

These judicial decisions, unheard of in Spain and pioneering worldwide due to their dynamic nature, add to other similar ones such as the one issued in France, where the responsibility of VPNs in the process of audiovisual fraud is also recognized.

LALIGA has become a worldwide benchmark in the fight against audiovisual fraud, and maintains its firm commitment in defense of the audiovisual rights of the clubs that make up the national football competition.