LaLiga and Fastly deepen anti-piracy innovation

LaLiga and edge cloud platform provider Fastly have launched a joint innovation project to develop technical tools that detect and eliminate pirated live streams of LaLiga matches, aiming to protect the value of broadcast rights and reduce revenue leakage.LaLiga said piracy costs its clubs between US$700m and US$800m a year, placing more pressure on rights holders and licensees to improve enforcement during live windows when illegal audiences can scale quickly.Javier Tebas, LaLiga president, said: “At LALIGA, we have succeeded in reducing piracy of our streams in Spain by 60% during the 2024/25 season through a comprehensive, end-to-end strategy focused on legal, educational, institutional, and technological measures.”“This success is due in large part to our ecosystem of partners like Fastly, enabling us to continue exploring new and more effective ways to tackle piracy at its root. LALIGA remains firmly committed to putting an end to piracy, and achieving this goal requires the collaboration of all stakeholders working together.”The organisations said they began collaborating last year, pointing to the volume of unauthorised streaming sites that appear on matchdays and the speed at which links and domains can shift once takedowns begin.Fastly said it has built a targeted detection system that uses AI alongside proprietary content signals to identify illegal streams in real time, with the aim of enabling platform customers to remove confirmed pirated content with greater precision.The partners cited industry research showing at least 10.8m unauthorised retransmissions of live events were detected in 2024, with more than 81% never suspended and only 2.7% addressed within the first 30 minutes, underlining how quickly value can be lost during a live broadcast.Fastly said its approach is intended to reduce the opportunity window for piracy without relying on legal enforcement measures against intermediaries, a positioning that speaks to the operational burden and jurisdictional complexity of pursuing large volumes of infringements via courts.The initiative also sits within a broader programme that lets media and publishing companies flag confirmed pirated content and segments, with LaLiga and Fastly working alongside other technology firms, publishers and regulators on software tools and best practices that disable unauthorised streams while leaving other traffic untouched.Kelly Shortridge, Fastly chief product officer, said: “Unlike alternative approaches based on regional blocking, our strategy focuses on precision, letting fans enjoy the game while protecting content from abuse by criminals.”