Spain's Second Section of the Intellectual Property Commission, part of the Ministry of Culture, has ordered the blocking of Archive.today and its mirrors — Archive.is, Archive.ph, and Archive.li — without a court ruling. The order followed a complaint from an unnamed rights holder and was an administrative decision.

Spanish internet users attempting to access the sites are redirected to a government page accusing them of "facilitating illegal access to content protected by intellectual property rights" and warning they are "contributing to an illegal and criminal activity."

The blocking was first reported by Spanish website Banda Ancha and reportedly began in mid-August with some operators. The affected domains did not appear on the Ministry of Culture's published list of blocked sites, last updated on September 11.

The blocking was carried out under a 2021 protocol signed by the Ministry of Culture, rights holders, and major ISPs, who agreed to block mirror sites within 24 hours of receiving notice from a Technical Committee. Archive.today is a web archiving service that preserves snapshots of web pages, widely used by researchers and journalists to view removed, altered, or paywalled content.