How did Twitch end up banned in Spain? LaLiga's piracy crackdown explained

Twitch, one of the biggest streaming platforms around the globe, got banned in Spain last week. The reasons behind the ban are due to piracy concerns by the LaLiga football league. While many streamers and the general public use it for its streaming purposes, a few have also used it to pirate shows or movies, which is a direct infringement on the platform's copyrights.

The LaLiga league has been going on since August 2024 and will conclude on May 25, 2025. The league has obtained a court order since February to block any websites they think might illegally stream the matches. Recently, the ISPs in Spain have carried out the enforcement of this court order by blocking access to dozens of websites, including Twitch, Amazon, GitHub, Cloudflare, and more. Some of these websites are not even used for piracy purposes.

The ban is not feasible for numerous Spanish businesses because they require access to certain websites for their day-to-day work. The sudden ban has resulted in a financial loss for many Spanish companies.

More details about Twitch being banned in Spain

Besides Twitch being banned, other online services are unavailable to the public because if an IP address is blocked due to connection to piracy, other websites or services that share the same IP might also get blocked.

As mentioned, the court has given LaLiga the power to block any potential piracy sites, and it has been doing that since February 2025. The American video live-streaming service was one of the most recent hits.

Additionally, the Spanish government has not been transparent with its citizens regarding the bans. Many netizens are left baffled by the sudden blackout of certain sites and services. They are left in the dark about whether the services are temporarily or permanently banned.

However, this is not the first time the American streaming platform has been blocked by different countries. It has happened in other parts of the world as well, such as Turkey and South Korea. However, the reasons behind the ban were completely different.

Twitch and Kick were temporarily banned in Turkey in February 2024 because of gambling concerns. South Korea banned the streaming platform around the same time because of the expensive operating costs.

Twitch being banned in Spain is creating issues for those who use it professionally, especially streamers. Netizens are questioning the government for the lack of transparency, as well as the lack of a less disruptive solution to LaLiga's concerns.

×

Was this article helpful?

Thank You for feedback