French court orders blocking of websites and IPTV services for illegally broadcasting LALIGA

LALIGA claimed another victory in the fight against piracy after a Paris court ordered the blocking of websites and IPTV services that infringed on the legitimate broadcasting rights of LALIGA Clubs.

For the first time in France, a foreign sports entity has obtained a dynamic order under Article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, enabling its competitions to be protected by the French authorities against illicit broadcasts on French territory.

The interim relief judge ordered Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to implement, without delay, all measures to prevent access to the sites identified by LALIGA in its summons, as well as to sites not yet identified at the date of the decision.

With this decision, LALIGA will now refer the case to ARCOM (the French public authority in charge of broadcast and digital media) to obtain the blocking of any new site or service not identified at the time of the judge's decision, in order to prevent or stop the broadcasting of LALIGA EA SPORTS and LALIGA HYPERMOTION matches, or any competitions it organises, which has its audiovisual rights exploited.

Piracy is a blight on the development of football and represents a multi-million dollar annual loss for LALIGA Clubs and for an industry that employs more than 194,000 people. There are no heroes behind this unlawful practice, but rather organised crime syndicates that profit from the work and the legitimate rights of clubs, media companies, etc. And do so through an untaxed black market, to the detriment of the whole of society.