Vercel Slams LaLiga Piracy Blocks As 'Unaccountable Internet Censorship'

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Cloud-based web application platform Vercel is among the latest companies to find their servers blocked in Spain due to LaLiga's ongoing IPTV anti-piracy campaign. In a statement, Vercel's CEO and the company's principal engineer slam 'indiscriminate' blocking as an 'unaccountable form of internet censorship' that has prevented legitimate customers from conducting their daily business. US-based Vercel describes itself as a 'complete platform for the web.' Through the provision of cloud infrastructure and developer tools, users can deploy code from their computers and have it up and running in just seconds. Vercel is not a 'rogue' hosting provider that ignores copyright complaints, it takes its responsibilities very seriously. Yet it became evident last week that blocking instructions executed by Telefonica-owned telecoms company Movistar were once again blocking innocent users, this time customers of Vercel.

As the thread on X continued, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch was asked whether Vercel had 'received any requests to remove illegal content before the blocking occurs?' Vercel Principal Engineer Matheus Fernandes answered quickly. Additional users were soon airing their grievances; ChatGPT blocked regularly on Sundays, a whole day 'ruined' due to unwarranted blocking of AI code editor Cursor, blocking at Cloudflare, GitHub, BunnyCDN, the list goes on. In a joint statement last week, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch and Principal Engineer Matheus Fernandes cited the LaLiga/Telefonica court order and reported that ISPs are 'blocking entire IP ranges, not specific domains or content.' Among them, the IP addresses 66.33.60.129 and 76.76.21.142, 'used by businesses like Spanish startup Tinybird, Hello Magazine, and others operating on Vercel, despite no affiliations with piracy in any form.' While clearly unhappy with how the company has been treated, Vercel says it's now working with LaLiga.

'We remain committed to providing fast, secure infrastructure for modern web applications. Likewise, we expect enforcement efforts to do the same: targeted, transparent, and technically sound. We are in contact with La Liga and are collaborating to remove illegal content in accordance with the court order. We're exploring mitigation strategies to restore access for Spanish users and continue to advocate for an open and permissionless web,' Vercel concludes.

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