Spanish court rules that popular streaming site Rojadirecta must stop

A Spanish judge has ordered the popular streaming site Rojadirecta to close its doors. For example, football streams can be viewed via the site. The case was brought by the company Movistar+, a subsidiary of provider Telefónica.

The decision to close the site stems from the judge’s finding that Rojadirecta facilitates infringement of the copyrights of Movistar+, which itself offers a streaming platform. The judge made the decision, which has now been published, on February 1, TorrentFreak reports. According to the site, Rojadirecta is one of the best known and longest standing sports streaming sites. The site is owned by the Puerto 80 company and was declared legal after a number of lawsuits.

This has changed with the current decision, although the current ruling is not final, according to the Spanish newspaper El País, because the possibility of appeal is still open. The site is still accessible at the time of writing. The paper goes on to say that the streaming site’s owner, Igor Seoane, took the position that he only acts as an intermediary and that the links to streams are added by users. The judge did not agree with that reasoning.

According to the complainants, Rojadirecta has caused a loss of approximately EUR 500 million per year, although it is not clear how they arrived at this amount. Nor is it clear how much compensation has been requested. As a result of the current verdict, the site has to close all its domains.