Mediapro secures important precedent in battle against online piracy

A Spanish court has condemned Puerto 80, the outfit behind website Rojadirecta, for violating broadcaster Mediapro’s intellectual property rights by posting links whereby users could access illegal streams of Mediapro’s coverage of top-tier Spanish football.

The Coruña court ordered Puerto 80 boss Igor Seoane to desist immediately from facilitating links to sites that provided live streams of matches to which Mediapro has the rights.

The defendants were ordered to suspend transmissions, data hosting and access to telecommunication networks until such time as they had demonstrated they had ceased all illegal activities.

The judge also ordered the website’s owners to compensate Mediapro for damages and to publicise the judgement via its website and in national media.

Rejecting Seoane’s defence that he was only providing links to third-party sites and not making illegal content available himself, the judge ruled that the site was editorially curating the content it was directing users to, providing features such as a schedule of matches.

Mediapro said that the judgement established an important precedent in its fight to protect its audiovisual rights and represented a decisive step in the eradication of piracy in Spain.

The judgement means that Rojadirecta, the principal anchor for illegal streaming in Spain, will disappear.