Judge Santiago Pedraz agreed to block Telegram's services in Spain while the claims are investigated. It will be the responsibility of mobile phone providers to block Telegram's services, the court source said.
Telegram did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A High Court spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Telegram is the fourth most-used messaging service in Spain, according to competition watchdog CNMC. It was used by nearly 19% of Spaniards surveyed by CNMC. The company says that in 2023 it had more than 700 million monthly active users worldwide.
The judge issued the order after officials in the Virgin Islands, where Telegram is registered, failed to respond to a court request from July 2023. The court wanted information that would allow it to identify who was behind the accounts in question that were uploading apparently pirated content.
The lack of cooperation from the Virgin Islands led him to take this "precautionary measure," the judge said in the order. Consumer advocacy group Facua criticized the ruling as disproportionate, warning that it would cause "enormous damage" to millions of the platform's users.
"It is as if they shut down the internet because there are websites that illegally host content protected by copyright," Facua's general secretary Ruben Sanchez said. Telegram is the fourth most used messaging service in Spain, according to the competition watchdog CNMC. It was used by almost 19% of Spaniards surveyed by the CNMC.
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