Why make CloudFlare ultimately responsible though? There are lots of companies between users and the servers providing pirated content. Cloudflare is just one step in the whole chain. Why not eg block Google Chrome?
In any case, blocking Cloudflare was a stupid thing to do. Especially because it didn't anything to solve the actual problem.
I think you're not faithfully trying to adopt their perspective here, even if you don't agree with it (just like me).
They need (in their mind, again I don't agree) to block these sites somehow, as they see it as them "stealing" viewers, judges agree with this. Now, where can the block be done, and have the least amount of collateral?
Cloudflare is not playing ball and turning of the streams, and they appear too quickly to go through court orders all the time. Banning a web browser obviously has a huge scope, so you're effectively left with blocking based IP, DNS or both/either.
Considering they are breaking local laws, and judges feel like something should be done to stop that, the solution they arrived at, regardless of how shit it is, is probably the solution with the least collateral damage, even if it has quite a lot.
Again, I don't agree with the decision, but I can also see from their perspective that they don't have a ton of choices, if we adopt the perspective that it should be stopped somehow.
I think you're not seeing the bigger picture.
Somehow La Liga (a private company) was able to convince the courts that it should be able to ban IPs almost in real-time without any oversight from the law. This is just insane in a modern democracy and only benefitted La Liga. Certainly not the population of Spain for whom the courts work for.
Time has proven what anyone with two brain cells knew already. Blocking IPs was never going to do much to solve the issue. It's a wack-a-mole game. Cloudflare knew this and La Liga did too.
> where can the block be done, and have the least amount of collateral?
Blocking one of the biggest providers of internet infra was anything but "the least amount of collateral". Plenty of companies and services depend on Cloudflare.
But that in their mind is "solving the issue, at that time". Why do you think they want to expand it to other sports now, because "doesn't do anything" or because they actually see some effect from it?
> Blocking one of the biggest providers of internet infra was anything but "the least amount of collateral". Plenty of companies and services depend on Cloudflare.
Ok, so given their perspective is "something must be done" and Cloudflare are not blocking the users after requests, what is the alternative here? Turning off the entire internet connection for individual users? Turning off all the internet during games? I really don't know what alternative could be possible, that still satisfies their "something must be done".
Again, I agree that this is an massive overstep, wildly miscalculated and I'm personally affected by this every time a football is on, I don't like it either.
What are these "massive negative consequences" you're talking about? Some IPs blocks from Cloudflare are blocked for ~90 minutes, some times a week. As repeated so many times, I agree it sucks, but it's not "internet is unavailable most of the week", it's "some websites are unavailable for some hours of the week".
And also again, if you don't see "something must be done" you're not able to adopt their perspective, so of course you'll never understand this, because you're seemingly refusing to. Fine, you do what you want, but don't mislead others what the real situation is, just because you're unable to grasp it from the other side.
A good chunk of the internet goes through Cloudflare. Something like 40% of the top 1000 websites use it.
Services depend on it (CI etc). SaaS companies are shut down. Businesses can't sell. Etc. It's a disaster. It's amazing how oblivious you seem to the gravity of the situation.
I'm not, I don't know how I could, as every single time the blocks happen, I'm personally affected by it, since I live in Spain.
But, seemingly we have wildly different experiences. None of the companies I buy stuff from our down during those periods, it's not a disaster as far as I notice it, but clearly you do, so now I'm curious what exactly you're doing during these 2-3 hours a week when this happen that makes you so affected by this, while I'm not?
I'm genuinely curious, not a "gotcha" or anything, I just want to understand your situation better, since our experience differs so much. Which region are you in and with what ISP?
I can see their point of view. I understand they consider this a disaster. I understand they are insistent that something must be done. I am saying that the remedy they are proposing has too many negative consequences to the rest of society to be allowed. I am saying that their interests, sincerely held though they may be, do not trump the interests of the entire rest of the country, and therefore their injury is not satisfiable in the manner they wish it were. As the man once said, you can’t always get what you want, no matter how large an economic enterprise you’re running.
When I'm posting this message to Hacker News, I'm the "customer" of this website. I'm not customer of all the intermediate nodes in the chain. So if I were to write something illegal and HN would be irresponsive to takedown requests, the courts could order the IP of HN to be blocked, not some intermediate ISP.
The Digital Markets Act speaks of "conduits" instead of speaking of the specific form the conduits may take. It does not give special rights to someone who forwards IP packets unmodified or to someone who receives IP packets and reissues other IP packets or to someone who changes the IP addresses in the packets. It only cares about the net effect of the transmission, and the fact is that Cloudflare is a conduit with caching.
Don't be disingenuous just because you like the company.
Furthermore, La Liga somehow convinced the courts they should be able to pick IPs for all ISPs to block in real-time without any oversight from the law. Considering this is a private company this is just absolutely insane.