Football Piracy: The Major Challenge for Digital Law

Football is no longer watched only from the stands or through television subscriptions. Millions of viewers access matches online, and some turn to websites that offer unauthorised streams or links to broadcasts hosted elsewhere. What may appear to be a simple way of watching a match for free can form part of a commercial operation built around advertising, unauthorised retransmissions and the exploitation of audiovisual rights.

The stakes are considerable. Broadcasting rights provide an important source of revenue for football clubs, leagues and media companies, helping finance the competitions that attract audiences in the first place. Unauthorised streaming can undermine that business model, while exposing users to intrusive advertising, fraudulent websites and other online risks.

Yet the legal response is not as simple as blocking a website or declaring every link unlawful. Digital law must distinguish between the person who retransmits protected content, the website that facilitates access to it and the intermediary whose infrastructure is used by others. The challenge is to protect intellectual property effectively without treating every online link or digital service as an infringement.

Audiovisual rights in the digital environment

Spanish intellectual property law provides the starting point. Royal Legislative Decree 1/1996, which approves the consolidated text of the Intellectual Property Law (Ley de Propiedad Intelectual, LPI), grants rights holders exclusive rights over the exploitation of protected works and regulates related rights held by other participants in the audiovisual industry. Articles 17 and 20 address, respectively, the exclusive rights of exploitation and the concept of communication to the public.

Sports broadcasts require a careful legal analysis because a football match, as a sporting event, is not automatically protected in the same way as an original audiovisual work. The broadcast itself, however, can involve protected audiovisual content and rights belonging to broadcasting organisations, producers and other rights holders. Spanish law also recognises specific rights and remedies relevant to the commercial exploitation of sports broadcasts.

Article 20 LPI defines communication to the public by reference to acts that allow a plurality of people to access a work without the prior distribution of copies to each person. This concept is important online because protected content can be made available to a large audience without physically distributing a copy to every viewer.

However, the legal consequences of sharing a link depend on the circumstances. A link to an authorised broadcast is not equivalent to a link that knowingly directs users to an unauthorised stream. In its judgment in GS Media (Case C-160/15), the Court of Justice of the European Union clarified that knowledge of the unauthorised nature of the content is relevant when determining whether a hyperlink amounts to communication to the public. Where a link is provided for profit, knowledge may be presumed, subject to the circumstances of the case and the possibility of rebutting that presumption.

The distinction matters because the internet depends on links to exchange information. Treating every link as unlawful would interfere with legitimate communication, journalism and access to information. Copyright enforcement must instead focus on the relevant conduct and whether the legal requirements for infringement are satisfied.

The EU's Digital Services Act (Regulation 2022/2065) also forms part of the framework. It establishes obligations for intermediary services, including mechanisms through which users can notify providers of allegedly illegal content and rules governing how such notifications are handled. It does not, however, impose a general obligation on all intermediaries to monitor every item of content transmitted or stored through their services.

Rojadirecta: a major Spanish case with roots in Galicia

Rojadirecta became one of Spain's best-known websites for accessing football broadcasts without authorisation. Its operation and the legal proceedings surrounding it raised difficult questions about the responsibility of websites that provide links to protected sports content and about the commercial consequences of facilitating unauthorised access.

The case involved Puerto 80 Projects S.L.U. and its administrator, Igor Seoane Miñán. In 2016, the Commercial Court No. 1 of A Coruña ordered the cessation of the website's infringing activity in proceedings involving Mediapro and football broadcasting rights. The dispute continued through the courts, illustrating the difficulties of establishing the extent of liability and calculating the financial damage caused by unauthorised exploitation.

In December 2024, Commercial Court No. 2 of A Coruña ordered Rojadirecta's operator and its administrator to pay €31.6 million in damages to Mediapro. The award concerned the unauthorised broadcasting of football matches during the 2014–2015 season, for which Mediapro held the relevant rights. The administrator was held jointly and severally liable for €15.8 million. When the ruling was announced, it was not final and could be appealed.

The amount is striking, but the legal significance of the case goes beyond its financial consequences. It demonstrates that operating a website which facilitates access to unauthorised sports broadcasts can give rise to substantial civil liability where the legal requirements are established. It also highlights the importance of assessing the actual role played by the website's operator, rather than assuming that a service which presents itself as a directory of links is necessarily a neutral intermediary.

At the same time, the case should not be reduced to the proposition that linking to content is always illegal. The relevant question is whether the conduct, considered in its context, infringes the rights at issue. The deliberate organisation of links to unauthorised broadcasts for commercial purposes is legally different from sharing an ordinary link without knowledge of any infringement.

For digital law, Rojadirecta is therefore a useful example of how established intellectual property principles are being applied to online services whose business models depend on directing audiences towards protected content.

Why illegal sports streaming persists

Despite litigation, website blocking and other enforcement measures, unauthorised sports streams continue to appear. One reason is the speed with which operators can change domains, move infrastructure or distribute links through other websites and messaging services. Enforcement action against one address may not eliminate the underlying operation, particularly when the people responsible, servers and commercial partners are located in different jurisdictions.

The cross-border nature of the internet also creates practical difficulties. Investigations may require cooperation between national authorities, hosting providers, domain registrars, payment services and advertising networks. Identifying the operator behind a website is only one part of the process; gathering admissible evidence and enforcing a judgment across borders can be equally challenging.

Economic incentives are another factor. Some services generate revenue through advertising, affiliate links or other commercial arrangements. Where unauthorised streams attract large audiences, operators may have an incentive to reappear even after enforcement action. Meanwhile, users may be attracted by the promise of free access, particularly where legitimate subscriptions are expensive or fragmented across several services.

These circumstances suggest that enforcement alone is unlikely to solve the problem. Measures against commercial-scale piracy need to be accompanied by effective cooperation between rights holders and intermediaries, accessible legal alternatives and public awareness of the risks associated with unauthorised streaming.

Technology and the law: blocking live streams

Live sports broadcasts create a particular enforcement problem because much of their commercial value is concentrated in the time when the event is taking place. A stream blocked after the final whistle may have already reached thousands of viewers and caused the damage that the rights holder was trying to prevent.

In May 2023, the European Commission adopted Recommendation (EU) 2023/1018 on combating online piracy of sports and other live events. It encourages Member States, rights holders and intermediary service providers to cooperate in responding to unauthorised retransmissions, including through the diligent processing of notices and appropriate measures against illegal streams. It also stresses the importance of respecting fundamental rights and ensuring that anti-piracy measures remain proportionate.

The Recommendation is an important policy instrument, but it is not itself a binding regulation imposing a universal blocking obligation. Its approach builds on existing legal remedies and encourages cooperation between the relevant participants.

Technology can make enforcement faster. Digital watermarking can help identify the source of an unauthorised stream, while automated detection tools can locate copies of a broadcast as they appear online. Dynamic blocking orders may also allow access to specific illegal streams to be restricted during a live event, rather than requiring rights holders to pursue an entirely new process for every changing web address.

These tools nevertheless raise legal and practical questions. Blocking must be sufficiently precise to avoid restricting lawful websites or unrelated services, and decisions must take account of freedom of expression, access to information and the rights of intermediaries and users. A measure designed to stop one illegal stream should not unnecessarily prevent access to legitimate content hosted on the same infrastructure.

Protecting rights without overextending liability

The legal framework must strike a balance between effective enforcement and the legitimate operation of online services. Rights holders need practical ways to stop unauthorised retransmissions, especially when delay can make a legal remedy ineffective. Intermediaries, on the other hand, should not automatically be treated as responsible for every infringement committed through their services.

The distinction between an active participant and a neutral intermediary is particularly important. A website that deliberately organises unauthorised streams, promotes them to attract users and generates revenue from that activity may be assessed differently from a hosting provider that stores third-party material without playing an active role in its selection or promotion.

The Digital Services Act provides a framework for intermediary responsibilities and notice-and-action procedures, while intellectual property law determines whether the underlying use of protected content is unlawful. Neither framework should be interpreted as establishing that every platform must proactively detect and eliminate every possible infringement, regardless of its role or the legal circumstances.

A sound approach requires cooperation between rights holders, technology providers, platforms and public authorities. It also requires transparent procedures, reliable evidence and safeguards against overblocking. The goal should be to make enforcement effective without creating unnecessary barriers to lawful online communication.

Conclusion: the next match will also be fought in court

The Rojadirecta proceedings demonstrate that the commercial exploitation of unauthorised football broadcasts can lead to substantial legal consequences. They also show why digital piracy cannot be understood solely as a technical problem: it involves intellectual property, commercial responsibility, cross-border enforcement and the design of online services.

Spain and the European Union have developed legal tools to address these challenges, but their effectiveness depends on how they are applied. Fast action against live streams can protect the value of broadcasting rights, provided that measures remain proportionate and do not indiscriminately restrict legitimate content. At the same time, courts must continue to distinguish deliberate infringement from the ordinary use of hyperlinks and intermediary services.

Football may still be decided on the pitch, but the economic value of the game is increasingly shaped by what happens online. Protecting that value requires more than removing links: it requires a legal framework capable of responding to technological change while preserving the principles that make the digital environment open, fair and accountable.