LaLiga has formally requested that the European Commission include major VPN providers on its Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List, alleging these services facilitate unauthorized access to live sports broadcasts. The move aims to pressure VPN providers to implement stricter measures against geo-blocking circumvention and copyright infringement.
This escalation by LaLiga signals a shift in how rights holders view the technical stack of digital piracy, moving beyond illegal host sites to target the infrastructure of anonymity. If the European Commission complies, it would set a precedent for treating legitimate privacy and security tools as complicit in copyright theft, potentially forcing a regulatory showdown between data protection laws and intellectual property enforcement. The broader streaming ecosystem may see increased pressure on ISPs and cloud providers to further restrict traffic from flagged VPN nodes. Watch for the European Commission's formal response to determine if other major sports leagues join this regulatory push.
LaLiga's watch list request follows a series of escalating enforcement actions against VPN providers in Spain. In February 2026, LaLiga and Telefónica secured court orders requiring NordVPN and Proton VPN to block access within Spain to 16 websites accused of illegally streaming LaLiga matches, with the rulings compelling the VPN services to immediately make the IP addresses of the alleged piracy websites inaccessible from Spanish networks. The Commercial Court No. 1 of Córdoba granted these precautionary measures on an inaudita parte basis, meaning without prior hearing of the defendants, and LaLiga stated the court acknowledged VPN providers are technological intermediaries subject to European Digital Services Regulation and are therefore required to prevent infringements committed through their infrastructure.
The specific framing of LaLiga's EU submission focuses on commercial incentives rather than the mere existence of VPN technology. In its 14-page filing for the 2027 Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List, LaLiga argues that NordVPN, ProtonVPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark are benefiting from third-party affiliate marketing guides that actively instruct users on how to bypass geo-blocking, and the league contends that by marketing and monetizing this circumvention functionality through affiliate programmes, these providers go beyond the role of neutral technical intermediaries. The submission explicitly states it is not targeting the provision of VPN services as such, but rather what LaLiga characterizes as the active promotion and commercial exploitation of their ability to circumvent court-ordered blocking measures.
The EU's Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List, published periodically by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Trade, has historically named specific websites and marketplaces outside the EU that facilitate large-scale counterfeiting and piracy. LaLiga's request to include general-purpose VPN providers would represent a categorical expansion of the list's scope. The league's legal strategy treats VPNs not as privacy tools but as distribution intermediaries within the piracy supply chain, a framing that aligns with the court's February 2026 finding that VPN operators bear intermediary liability under the Digital Services Act. If the Commission includes any of the four named providers in its 2027 edition, it would establish a precedent for rights holders across other content verticals to pursue similar infrastructure-level enforcement requests.
LaLiga has formally requested that the European Commission include major VPN providers on its Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List. The league argues these services actively promote geo-blocking circumvention to access sports broadcasts. This move signals a shift in piracy enforcement, targeting infrastructure providers rather than just illegal streaming websites.
LaLiga claims that VPN providers like NordVPN, ProtonVPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark actively market and monetize their ability to bypass geo-blocking, which facilitates unauthorized access to live football matches.
It is a list published by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Trade that identifies websites and marketplaces outside the EU that facilitate large-scale counterfeiting and piracy.
Yes. In February 2026, a Spanish court ordered NordVPN and Proton VPN to block access to 16 websites accused of illegally streaming LaLiga matches, citing their role as technological intermediaries.
VPN providers generally defend their services as essential privacy tools and cite 'no-logs' policies as a barrier to monitoring user activity.
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