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La Liga, a Spanish football league, has secured a court order that requires NordVPN and Proton VPN to block access to sites accused of pirating the league’s matches. However, the two VPN providers say they were unaware the case was even going on.
On Tuesday, La Liga announced the court orders, which came from “Commercial Court No. 1 of Córdoba” in Spain. The football league says the rulings mean both VPN providers need to block several IP addresses for their subscribers in Spain.
While VPNs are important tools for privacy and bypassing censorship, those same tools—such as masking IP addresses and spoofing locations—can also be used for digital piracy. According to Reuters, the victory in Spanish court applies to 16 websites accused of illegally streaming La Liga matches and cannot be appealed. La Liga also called the orders “pioneering worldwide.”
But Proton VPN is implying it won’t comply with the court order because it was never aware of any court case until today. “Moreover, any judicial order issued without proper notification to the affected parties, thereby denying them the opportunity to be heard, would be procedurally invalid under fundamental principles of due process,” the provider tweeted.
“Spanish courts, like all courts operating under the rule of law, are bound by procedural safeguards that ensure parties are given a fair opportunity to present their case before any binding judgment is rendered,” Proton VPN added.
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NordVPN also told PCMag it was never “part of any Spanish judicial proceedings to our knowledge, and therefore had no opportunity to defend ourselves.
“Given such judgments impact on how the internet operates, such an approach by rightsholders is unacceptable. In any case, we are not in a position to comment about which exact measures and against whom were ordered without having seen the judgment,” the VPN service added.
NordVPN also called the court order flawed in its attempt to crack down on piracy. For example, the 16 websites accused of piracy could simply create new domains to bypass the blocking. In addition, users in Spain could sign up with a different VPN provider not named in the court order. Another issue is that the most reputable VPNs don’t track user locations as part of their no-logging policies, which include no monitoring of user activity.
Still, the La Liga news is notable because courts in France have also ordered VPN providers to block illegal streams of football matches and other sporting events. NordVPN is appealing.
Meanwhile, a general manager for Proton VPN argued: "LaLiga has been ordering Spanish ISPs to block ~3000 IP addresses almost every weekend. Because Cloudflare IPs are shared, this has been doing massive collateral damage to thousands of legitimate websites, apps, and vital services —all at the whim of a private corporation."