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      ACE Subpoenas Target IPTV Services, Piracy Apps, and Streaming Portals

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Monday, 17 June - 10:47 · 3 minutes

    ACE logo The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment ( ACE ), arguably the world’s most active anti-piracy coalition, is backed by dozens of major rightsholders.

    The group is largely managed by the Motion Picture Association, which has requested many DMCA subpoenas on its behalf over the past few years.

    New Subpoena Round

    After the MPA’s former Chief of Global Content Protection Jan Van Voorn left for a new opportunity , ACE went quiet on the subpoena front. The legal requests were always signed by Van Voorn, so someone else had to fill this role going forward. But who?

    The answer arrived late last week when several new subpoena requests were docketed at a California federal court. The requests are similar to those seen before, now signed by Dani Bacsa, MPA’s Deputy Chief of Content Protection.

    Through the subpoenas, ACE asks Cloudflare and the .To domain registry (Tonic) for information related to several domain names. These targets can be broadly divided into three groups – streaming sites, apps, and IPTV services – some with dozens of millions of monthly visits.

    Pirate Streaming Sites

    Anime site Anitaku is the most prominent target, with more than 125 million visits between March and May. However, other sites such as Goojara and Kickassanime have no traffic shortage either.

    The subpoenas target a total of 17 pirate streaming site domains. ACE and the MPA hope that, through their requests for information, they can learn more about the identities and whereabouts of the operators.

    Domains with the most traffic ( full list here )

    Domain 3 Month Visits
    Anitaku.so 127 million
    Anitaku.to 94 million
    Goojara.to 82 million
    Kickassanime.mx 55 million
    Animesonlinecc.to 54 million

    Piracy Apps and IPTV

    In addition to streaming sites, ACE has also listed domain names of websites that offer downloads to dedicated piracy apps including ‘Gold Core App’, ‘Live NetTV’, ‘RedPlay’ and ‘MagisTv’.

    redplay magistv

    In addition, the subpoenas include domain names of IPTV portals such as Atlaspro, Newtelevision, and Honeybeeiptv. The latter is particularly popular in Singapore, where it’s one of the most visited sites in the Computers and Technology category.

    As with the other sites and services, links to show how these domains match to infringing titles are included for each domain.

    honeybee

    The goal of these proposed subpoenas is to require Tonic and Cloudflare to share identifying information on the users who maintain the associated accounts. That includes any names, physical addresses, IP addresses, e-mail addresses, payment information, and account histories.

    Helpful, Not Perfect

    Most operators of pirate sites and services know that ACE can obtain these DMCA subpoenas. They often preempt this by using false information. However, according to MPA’s Deputy Chief of Content Protection, Dani Bacsa, these efforts can still pay off.

    Speaking with TorrentFreak, Bacsa says that the subpoenas are part of a legal tool set used to unmask pirates behind mass-scale infringing services. The MPA can’t share its success rate, but subpoenaed information has been fruitful in multiple cases.

    Ideally, ACE, MPA, and other rightsholder representatives would like intermediaries to verify their customers’ identities.

    Without referring specifically to Cloudflare or Tonic, Bacsa confirms that it would be a positive step if online intermediaries adopted robust ‘Know Your Business Customer’ (KYBC) procedures.

    “Applying a KYBC policy will also ensure legal compliance, enhance security, prevent fraud, and protect the intermediary’s reputation by verifying the legitimacy of its business customers and mitigating associated risks,” Bacsa concludes.



    A full list of all targeted domains is available below. The associated paperwork can be found here ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ).

    – vegamovies.to
    – goojara.to
    – supernova.to
    – animesonlinecc.to
    – anitaku.to
    – ssoap2day.to
    – anitaku.so
    – braflix.video
    – kickassanime.mx
    – movieffm.net
    – hdtodaytv.icu
    – animepahe.com
    – animepahe.org
    – gogoanime.me
    – soaper.tv
    – soap2day.tf
    – soap2day.qa
    – vegamovies.to
    – gold.coreplay.tv
    – livenettv.bz
    – redplaycard.com
    – magistv.app
    – atlaspro.tv
    – atlaspro.io
    – newtelevision.online
    – best-usahosting.com
    – honeybeeiptv.com

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Google, Cloudflare & Cisco Will Poison DNS to Stop Piracy Block Circumvention

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Thursday, 13 June - 17:19 · 5 minutes

    football block In France, where laws were introduced with site-blocking and similar anti-piracy measures already baked in, entertainment giant Canal+ seems intent on taking full advantage.

    Like similar broadcasters with lucrative sports rights to exploit, Canal+ has a subset of viewers who prefer to consume from pirate sources which charge much less, or even nothing at all.

    To maximize its existing site-blocking efforts through local ISPs, the French broadcaster has now taken the logical, albeit controversial, next step on the site-blocking ladder.

    DNS Tampering at the Local ISP Level

    In 2023, Canal+ went to court in France to tackle pirate sports streaming sites including Footybite.co, Streamcheck.link, SportBay.sx, TVFutbol.info, and Catchystream.com. The broadcaster said that since subscribers of local ISPs were accessing the pirate sites using their services, the ISPs should prevent them from doing so.

    When the decision went in favor of Canal+, ISPs including Orange, SFR, OutreMer Télécom, Free, and Bouygues Télécom, were required to implement technical measures. Since the ISPs have their own DNS resolvers for use by their own customers, these were configured to provide non-authentic responses to deny access to the sites in question.

    In response, increasingly savvy internet users that hadn’t already done so, simply changed their settings to use different DNS providers – Cloudflare, Google, and Cisco – whose resolvers hadn’t been tampered with; at least not yet.

    One More Step Up The Ladder: Public DNS Tampering

    Use of third-party DNS providers to circumvent blocking isn’t uncommon so last year Canal+ took legal action against three popular public DNS providers – Cloudflare ( 1.1.1.1 ), Google ( 8.8.8.8 ), and Cisco ( 208.69.38.205 ), demanding measures similar to those implemented by French ISPs.

    Tampering with public DNS is a step too far for many internet advocates but for major rightsholders, if the law can be shaped to allow it, that’s what will happen. In this case, Article L333-10 of the French Sports Code (active Jan 2022) seems capable of accommodating almost anything.

    When there are “serious and repeated violations” by an “online public communication service” whose main objective is the unauthorized broadcasting of sports competitions, rightsholders can demand “all proportionate measures likely to prevent or put an end to this infringement, against any person likely to contribute to remedying it.”

    Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco Ordered to Prevent Circumvention

    Two decisions were handed down by the Paris judicial court last month; one concerning Premier League matches and the other the Champions League. The orders instruct Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco to implement measures similar to those in place at local ISPs. To protect the rights of Canal+, the companies must prevent French internet users from using their services to access around 117 pirate domains.

    According to French publication l’Informé , which broke the news, Google attorney Sébastien Proust crunched figures published by government anti-piracy agency Arcom and concluded that the effect on piracy rates, if any, is likely to be minimal.

    Starting with a pool of all users who use alternative DNS for any reason, users of pirate sites – especially sites broadcasting the matches in question – were isolated from the rest. Users of both VPNs and third-party DNS were further excluded from the group since DNS blocking is ineffective against VPNs.

    Proust found that the number of users likely to be affected by DNS blocking at Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco, amounts to 0.084% of the total population of French Internet users. Citing a recent survey, which found that only 2% of those who face blocks simply give up and don’t find other means of circumvention, he reached an interesting conclusion.

    “2% of 0.084% is 0.00168% of Internet users! In absolute terms, that would represent a small group of around 800 people across France!”

    Court Rejected Arguments Against Blocking

    In common with other courts presented with the same arguments, the Paris court said the number of people using alternative DNS to access the sites, and the simplicity of switching DNS, are irrelevant.

    Canal+ owns the rights to the broadcasts and if it wishes to request a blocking injunction, it has the legal right to do so.

    The DNS providers’ assertion that their services are not covered by the legislation was also waved aside by the court.

    Google says it intends to comply with the order. As part of the original matter in 2023, it was already required to deindex the domains from search results under the same law.

    At least in theory, this means that those who circumvented the original blocks using these alternative DNS services, will be back to square one and confronted by blocks all over again.

    Given that circumventing this set of blocks will be as straightforward as circumventing the originals, that raises the question of what measures Canal+ will demand next, and from whom.

    Tribunal Judiciare de Paris | Canal+ | Cloudflare/Google/Cisco
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    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Live ‘Piracy Shield’ Data Exposed By New Platform Reveals Akamai IP Blocking

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Tuesday, 26 March, 2024 - 14:17 · 4 minutes

    Logo piracy shield After initially denying that Italy’s new Piracy Shield anti-piracy platform had been responsible for any over-blocking, last week telecoms regulator AGCOM conceded that an IP address belonging to Cloudflare had been blocked in error .

    While that might be considered progress of sorts, the incident was downplayed as minor on the basis it was rectified a few hours later. No consolation for the many Cloudflare customers affected, of course, but that particular problem isn’t going away. Cloudflare is encouraging its customers to file complaints to draw attention to the perils of widespread blocking measures.

    Yet despite calls for more transparency, not to mention an obvious need, AGCOM is still not reporting the IP addresses subjected to blocking, instead preferring to report the volume of IP addresses blocked instead. While the latter is not unimportant information, only the former can shine light on cases where IP addresses are blocked in error. Or when IP addresses are blocked despite the legal provision that prohibits blocking when IPs are not exclusively used for piracy.

    New Third-Party Service Imposes Transparency

    Official providers of all types of content have understood for some time that if they don’t meet demand, someone else will do it for them. After calls for transparency appeared to fall on deaf ears, transparency has been imposed on the Piracy Shield system thanks to a new, unofficial third-party system: Piracy Shield Search .

    The most important feature of the service is the ability to enter an IP address or a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to find out whether they’re on the Piracy Shield system.

    The image below consists of an original blocking order (translated from Italian) issued in response to a blocking application by Sky Italia. To protect Sky’s broadcasting rights for FIM MotoGP World Championship and the Motul FIM Superbike World Championship, the domain http://live.vitocatozzo.eu was added to the Piracy Shield system.

    The response from Piracy Shield Search added by us directly underneath the relevant section in the application confirms that the domain was indeed placed on the blocklist. The response also provides the time the rightsholder or its representative added the ticket to the system, which acts as the instruction for ISPs to go ahead and start blocking.

    Rightsholder Tickets and Top AS By IP Address

    The Piracy Shield Search system shows data relating to currently active blocking, not the total number of requests made or IP addresses/domains blocked to date.

    In the image below we can see that 662 rightsholder tickets are currently live, and together they target 2,849 IPv4 IP addresses, zero IPv6 IP addresses, and 6,601 fully qualified domain names. The panel on the right shows the top AS (autonomous systems) ranked by the total number of IP addresses allocated to the AS that are currently subject to blocking.

    The ticket panel on the left shows that the system deployed in Italy operates similarly to the blocking system operated in the UK.

    Much is made in the media about the requirement to block IP addresses and domains within 30 minutes, possibly to imply that blocking takes place mostly during live matches. However, the two items at the top of the list show that IP addresses and domains are typically added in bulk, long after matches finish or, alternatively, long before they actually start.

    Tickets Reveal More Blocking Blunders

    The people behind Piracy Shield Search have decided to partially redact IP addresses requested for blocking in rightsholder tickets. Since the search facility on the front page responds to requests for specific IP addresses, there’s no need to expose the IP addresses in full here.

    However, since the names of the hosts are displayed in full, it’s possible to determine whether the IP addresses that appear on the left are likely to be operated by CDN companies. More importantly, there may also be enough information to determine whether multiple services potentially share the IP address.

    In a post to X, developer and researcher Matteo Contrini confirms what many people had suspected; Cloudflare isn’t the only major CDN provider whose IP addresses have ended up on the Piracy Shield system.

    “The platform #PiracyShield is blocking 15 Akamai IP addresses! Not only Cloudflare but also the largest CDN in the world…,” Contrini notes.

    The data suggests that transparency is a double-edged sword. Without transparency, there’s no scrutiny, and no specific fuel for criticism. When transparency exists, whether voluntarily or by imposition, scrutiny ensures that criticism can be backed up by data provided by the system itself.

    What transparency offers that opacity never does, however, is a powerful incentive to do better. Whether the addition of these IP addresses is due to blunder after uncorrected blunder isn’t clear, but the alternative is unquestionably much worse.

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Phishers who breached Twilio and fooled Cloudflare could easily get you, too

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 9 August, 2022 - 23:33

    Phishers who breached Twilio and fooled Cloudflare could easily get you, too

    Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

    At least two security-sensitive companies—Twilio and Cloudflare—were targeted in a phishing attack by an advanced threat actor who had possession of home phone numbers of not just employees but employees' family members as well.

    In the case of Twilio, a San Francisco-based provider of two-factor authentication and communication services, the unknown hackers succeeded in phishing the credentials of an undisclosed number of employees and, from there, gained unauthorized access to the company's internal systems, the company said . The threat actor then used that access to data in an undisclosed number of customer accounts.

    Two days after Twilio's disclosure, content delivery network Cloudflare, also headquartered in San Francisco, revealed it had also been targeted in a similar manner. Cloudflare said that three of its employees fell for the phishing scam, but that the company's use of hardware-based MFA keys prevented the would-be intruders from accessing its internal network.

    Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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      Cloudflare Doubts DMCA Takedown Company’s Fake Employee and Special Bots

      Ernesto Van der Sar · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Thursday, 8 April, 2021 - 20:42 · 4 minutes

    cloudflare logo Popular CDN and DDoS protection service Cloudflare has come under a lot of pressure from copyright holders in recent years.

    The company offers its services to millions of sites, some of which offer access to copyright-infringing material.

    Cloudflare prefers to remain a neutral service provider and doesn’t terminate clients based on DMCA notices. Instead, it forwards these to its customers, only taking action when it receives a court order.

    Repeat Infringer Lawsuit

    This stance is not appreciated by all rightsholders and in 2018 the service was taken to court over the issue. The case wasn’t filed by major entertainment companies, but by two manufacturers and wholesalers of wedding dresses. Not a typical “piracy” lawsuit, but it’s a copyright case that could have broad implications.

    In a complaint filed at a federal court in California , Mon Cheri Bridals and Maggie Sottero Designs argued that even after multiple warnings, Cloudflare fails to terminate sites operated by counterfeit vendors. This makes Cloudflare liable for the associated copyright infringements, they said.

    Cloudflare disagreed and both sides are now conducting discovery to collect evidence for an eventual trial. Among other things, the wedding dress manufacturers were asked to hand over detailed sales records. In addition, the CDN provider is also interested in the companies’ DMCA takedown partner XMLShop LLC.

    Cloudflare Wants DMCA Takedown Evidence

    Over the past few months, Cloudflare has tried to get further information on how XMLShop, which is also known as Counterfeit Technology , collects evidence for its takedown notices.

    These takedowns play a central role in the lawsuit and XMLShop and its employees could provide crucial information. Thus far, however, Cloudflare hasn’t been able to get what it wants.

    To resolve this issue, Cloudflare submitted a motion asking the court to compel the DMCA takedown company to comply with its requests for information. According to their filing, the company may be holding back important evidence.

    “Plaintiffs and XMLShop, who use the same counsel, appear to be using XMLShop’s status strategically as a ‘non-party’ to conceal relevant documents from Cloudflare. The Court should reject their gamesmanship,” Cloudflare informed the court.

    After serving two subpoenas, the takedown company only produced one document, Cloudflare notes. Meanwhile, the publicly available information on the company is highly confusing or even misleading.

    Who Works at XMLShop?

    For example, Cloudflare would like to question XMLShop’s employees, but the company hasn’t handed over an employee directory or payroll log that would reveal who works at the company.

    “XMLShop has not been forthright about its operations, leaving Cloudflare in the dark as to who else may be a witness with relevant knowledge,” Cloudflare writes.

    According to XMLShop’s attorney, the company only has one employee named Suren Ter-Saakov, but this claim is contradicted by its own website and Linkedin.

    “XMLShop’s own public statements contradict its counsel’s statement. Its website boasts ‘a big team of professionals working in three offices, located in Ukraine, the United States, and Dominican Republic.

    “And a LinkedIn profile for an individual named Blair Hearnsberger represents that she or he is the CEO at Counterfeit Technology,” Cloudflare adds.

    Fake Profile

    According to the takedown company’s attorney, this profile is fake and Blair Hearnsberger does not actually exist, but Cloudflare is not convinced. Therefore, it hopes that the court will compel XMLShop to verify who works at the company and in what roles.

    In addition to finding information on possible employees, Cloudflare also requests further information on the software that Counterfeit Technology used to find infringing content.

    Special Takedown Bots?

    The wedding dress manufacturers claimed that their takedown partner “scours the internet with special bots designed to locate and identify the unauthorized use” but it’s unclear how this technology works.

    Cloudflare would like to assess the software to see how accurate it is, especially since the company states that it spends only 10 seconds sending notifications of claimed infringement to all traffic sources.

    “Its use — and the reliability — of that technology is at least relevant to the predicate allegations of direct infringement it asserts. It is also relevant to Cloudflare’s contention that it never received any notifications of claimed infringement from Counterfeit Technology that were valid,” Cloudflare writes.

    The CDN provider asked the court to compel XMLShop to produce the subpoenaed documents. In addition, XMLShop should be held in contempt for failing to obey the subpoena and ordered to pay the legal costs Cloudflare incurred to submit the motion.

    This week, XMLShop responded to the request stating that it has already produced everything it could. It views the remaining requests as incredibly broad, since these ask for “sensitive” trade secret information. It is now up to the court to make a final decision.

    A copy of Cloudflare’s memorandum in support of its motion to compel XLMshop to comply with the subpoena is available here (pdf).

    . XMLShop’s response can be found here (pdf).

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Cloudflare Must Block Pirate IPTV Services, Appeals Court Confirms

      Ernesto Van der Sar · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Wednesday, 17 February, 2021 - 15:14 · 3 minutes

    IPTV CDN provider Cloudflare is one of the leading Internet companies, providing services to millions of customers large and small.

    The service positions itself as a neutral intermediary that passes on traffic while making sure that customers remain secure. Its userbase includes billion-dollar companies such as IBM, Shopify, and L’Oreal, but also countless smaller outlets.

    With a company of this size, it comes as no surprise that some Cloudflare customers are engaged in controversial activities. This includes some pirate sites and services, which have landed Cloudflare in court on several occasions.

    Last year there were two prominent cases against Cloudflare in Italy. In the first one, football league Serie A and Sky Italy requested Cloudflare to block the unauthorized IPTV service “IPTV THE BEST” and in a similar case, rightsholders wanted “ENERGY IPTV” blocked.

    Cloudflare Appeals Blocking Injunctions

    Cloudflare lost both cases and was ordered to block the services in question. While the company hasn’t commented on the legal actions in detail, it decided to appeal the two injunctions at the Milan court.

    Last Friday, the court ruled on the “IPTV THE BEST” case, confirming that Cloudflare is indeed required to block access.

    In its defense, Cloudflare argued that it doesn’t provide hosting services but merely passes on bits and bytes. In addition, it pointed out that the IPTV service could still remain active even if its account was terminated.

    Cloudflare Facilitates Access

    The court was not convinced by these arguments and concluded that Cloudflare contributes to the infringements of its customer by optimizing and facilitating the site’s availability.

    “It is in fact adequately confirmed that Cloudflare carries out support and optimization activities to showcase sites, which allow the visibility and advertising of illegal services,” the court concluded.

    That the IPTV service could continue without using Cloudflare is irrelevant, the court stressed.

    In addition, the court confirmed that copyright holders are entitled to these types of protective blocking measures, even if the activity of the online intermediary itself is not directly infringing.

    Dynamic Orders

    The Milan court reached the same conclusion in Cloudflare’s appeal against the “ENERGY IPTV” injunction, which was decided yesterday. In both cases, the court also confirmed that the injunctions are “dynamic”, which means that if the IPTV services switch to new domains or IP-addresses, these have to be blocked as well.

    While the ruling is a setback for Cloudflare, copyright holders are pleased. Attorney Simona Lavagnini, who represented Sky Italy, informs TorrentFreak that it will now be easier to hold online services accountable for infringing customers.

    “I am pleased to see the position taken by the Court, confirming that injunction orders can be addressed to all providers involved in the provision of services to those who offer illegal contents on the web.

    “This principle is now general and includes telecoms as well as passive hosting providers and other services such as CDNs,” Lavagnini adds.

    We also reached out to Cloudflare for a comment on these recent court orders but the company didn’t immediately reply. The CDN provider previously confirmed that it has been legally required to block several domains, without going into further detail.

    With regard to earlier blocking orders, Cloudflare said that it complies with these in the relevant jurisdictions. In other words, the targeted services remain available in other countries. Whether that’s also the case here is unknown.

    Update: The legal team representing the Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A (LNPA), which includes Bruno Ghirardi, Stefano Previti, Alessandro La Rosa, and Riccardo Traina Chiarini, is happy with the outcome and told us the following:

    “Cloudflare participates in activities that allow the visibility of the illicit services IPTV THE BEST and ENERGY IPTV – also through the storage of data from these sites – and participates in the flow of data in violation of the rights of LNPA.”

    “This implies the legitimacy of targeting Cloudflare as a passive subject of the precautionary order, despite the possibility that, in the absence of Cloudflare’s services, illicit access to the protected content would be also possible.”

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Cloudflare Calls For Sanctions Over False Claims in Piracy Lawsuit

      Ernesto Van der Sar · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Saturday, 9 January, 2021 - 21:34 · 3 minutes

    cloudflare Earlier this year Texas-based model Deniece Waidhofer sued Thothub for copyright infringement after the site’s users posted many of her ‘exclusive’ photos.

    While Cloudflare isn’t new to copyright infringement allegations, this case has proven to be more than a nuisance. The company previously countered the claims with a motion to dismiss, but Waidhofer and her legal team are not backing off.

    In an amended complaint some of the most egregious allegations, including the RICO conspiracy, were dropped. However, the copyright infringement claims remain and with two new cosplay models joining the action, the list of defendants has grown.

    Last week Cloudflare responded to these new allegations, again denying any wrongdoing. In addition, the company filed a separate motion for sanctions a few days earlier, accusing the defendants of fabricating a fatally flawed theory of contributory copyright infringement.

    The issue revolves around Cloudflare’s “ Argo Tunnel ” service, which allows website operators to secure their systems from outside attacks. Put simply, it does so by routing all traffic to a site through Cloudflare’s network via an encrypted tunnel.

    The models argue that Thothub used this Argo Tunnel and that the CDN provider could have shut the site down by disabling this service. That would counter Cloudflare’s defense that terminating Thothub’s account would have had a limited impact.

    Cloudflare informs the court that the Argo Tunnel wasn’t created to help pirates, but to better secure the sites of its users. Not just that, it notes that Thothub never used this service.

    “[I]t is clear that Argo Tunnel is a cyber security product of general applicability, created for and used by thousands of users,” the company writes.

    “And fatal to Plaintiffs’ claims, Argo Tunnel was never used by the Thothub.tv website or any of its subdomains, which were the alleged source of the direct infringement.”

    argo

    Cloudflare repeatedly told the defense attorneys that Thothub didn’t use the Argo Tunnel and warned of potential sanctions, but the claims were added nonetheless.

    This went a step too far for the CDN provider which is now asking the court to sanction the defendants and their attorneys for failing to conduct a reasonable investigation.

    In addition, they should be sanctioned for “knowingly or recklessly maintaining false and frivolous allegations for the improper purpose of harassing Cloudflare with overbroad copyright infringement claims,” the company writes.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, the models and their legal team aren’t happy with the accusations and swiftly fired back this week.

    Turning the tables, their detailed reply accuses Cloudflare’s attorneys of failing to conduct a reasonable investigation and failing to provide evidence. For this conduct, Cloudflare’s lawyers should be sanctioned.

    “Cloudflare’s counsel’s baseless and insulting accusations impugning Plaintiffs’ counsel’s integrity and professionalism, simply because Cloudflare and its counsel baldly assert the Argo Tunnel allegations are false,” they counter.

    “Because the Motion is frivolous and apparently lodged for an improper purpose to circumvent discovery, obtain privileged information, drive up litigation costs, and delay, distract, harass, and intimidate Plaintiffs, it should be denied and Cloudflare should be sanctioned.”

    The plaintiffs also provide further information that is supposed to substantiate their claims. Relying on an investigation from a technical expert, who previously worked at Akamai, they conclude that it’s reasonable to believe that Thothub indeed used the Argo Tunnel.

    Part of this evidence is based on the “Error 1003 Access Denied: Direct IP Access Denied” message that appeared when accessing one of the site’s Cloudflare IP-addresses.

    “Based on independent research, Mr. Bell learned that this error message indicated that the site could be using an Argo Tunnel,” the models’ lawyer writes.

    While that may be true, it’s no guarantee. The same error message also appears when one tries to access TorrentFreak.com’s Cloudflare IP-address, and we don’t use the Argo Tunnel.

    In addition, the plaintiffs allege that Thothub used server port 8443, arguing that this is “often” used to implement an Argo Tunnel.

    At the end of the day, both parties are calling for sanctions over unsubstantiated claims. Cloudflare wants the frivolous Argo Tunnel claims removed from the complaint, while the models seek to punish Cloudflare for its frivolous call for sanctions.

    It is now up to the court to decide if any sanctions are indeed needed, but it’s clear that this case is proving to be quite the handful.

    —-

    Cloudflare’s motion for sanctions is available here and the models’ motion can be found here

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Cosplay Models Want Cloudflare to Stop ‘Indulging’ Pirate Sites

      Ernesto Van der Sar · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Saturday, 19 December, 2020 - 21:40 · 4 minutes

    cosplay pirate Earlier this year Texas-based model Deniece Waidhofer sued Thothub for copyright infringement after the site’s users posted many of her ‘exclusive’ photos.

    Soon after the complaint was filed Thothub went offline . This prompted Waidhofer to shift priorities.

    In an amended complaint, submitted a few weeks ago, Thothub is no longer a defendant. Instead, the lawsuit now focuses on several sites and services that did business with the pirate site, including CDN provider Cloudflare.

    Cosplay Models Join Case Against Cloudflare

    Another significant change is that Waidhofer is no longer the sole plaintiff. She is now joined by two cosplay artists, Ryuu Lavitz and Margaret McGhee, better known as OMGcosplay . Together, these models have millions of online followers.

    When the original case was filed, Lavitz and McGhee hadn’t registered their photos at the Copyright Office. Both submitted their registrations for hundreds of works in September, after which they were able to join the case.

    In addition to removing Thothub as a defendant and adding two plaintiffs, some of the strongest allegations were stripped from the original complaint. Cloudflare is no longer alleged to be part of a RICO conspiracy but is accused of direct and contributory copyright infringement.

    The models claim that Cloudflare has carved out a competitive niche by serving illegal pirate sites that other large CDN companies like Akamai Technologies would not. It ‘helps’ these sites by concealing the real IP-address and by ‘storing’ their content, it’s alleged.

    Motion to Dismiss

    Cloudflare replied to these allegations by pointing out that it’s merely a middleman. The company has no knowledge of the traffic that passes through its network and doesn’t store content permanently, in most cases, but simply makes temporary “cache” copies.

    “Under Plaintiffs’ wildly expansive theory of liability, the owner of any computer connected to the Internet could potentially be exposed to unlimited liability,” Cloudflare argued, adding that the complaint doesn’t show bad “intent”.

    Based on these and various other deficiencies, the CDN provider asked the court to dismiss the case. However, the models disagree and recently submitted several counterarguments.

    ‘Cloudflare Helps Pirate Sites’

    The models argue that Cloudflare was aware of the copyright infringements on Thothub, but chose not to do anything. Instead, it helped the site to cope with vast amounts of traffic so it could stay online. That’s what the site does for other pirate sites as well.

    “Cloudflare easily could have limited Thothub’s infringement simply by terminating service, or by not delivering URLs that it had already been notified contained infringing content. But Cloudflare stood behind Thothub instead, as it does regularly for pirates everywhere. Indeed, Cloudflare has made a cottage industry out of indulging pirates.”

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    The plaintiffs say that Cloudflare is liable for contributory copyright infringement. The company’s decision not to take action helped Thothub to stay online and operate more efficiently. That is enough to be held liable, the models argue, referencing the ALS Scan case against Cloudflare.

    “Cloudflare enabled Thothub to be operated securely on a vast scale. The law recognizes this as a material contribution that, with knowledge, creates liability,” they write.

    Thothub Alternatives Still use Cloudflare

    Without Cloudflare, Thothub’s site would have been “overrun and crashed.” Although it may have come back, that ‘simple measure’ would have made a difference, at least briefly. Cloudflare, however, decided not to act and it does the same for many similar sites today.

    “The Complaint identifies nearly two dozen other pirate sites — all Cloudflare clients — that are Thothub copycats, including one called Thothub.ru that is nearly a direct clone,” the plaintiffs write.

    In addition to contributory infringement, the models also accuse the company of direct infringement. They argue that the CDN provider made copies of Thothub files on its own accord and continued copying works after takedown notices were sent.

    The reply to Cloudflare’s motion to dismiss is filled with allegations that will eventually have to be backed up with evidence. In addition to focusing on the case at hand, it also references an EU report which concluded that 62% of the world’s top 500 pirate sites use Cloudflare.

    Daily Stormer and 8Chan

    And, as we predicted a few years ago , Cloudflare’s decision to ban The Daily Stormer is also being brought up.

    “Despite serving most of the world’s top pirate sites, on information and belief, Cloudflare has never voluntarily terminated services to a customer for repeat copyright infringement. Cloudflare has, however, voluntarily terminated services for other customer sites, including the American Neo-Nazi group Daily Stormer and the conspiracy website 8chan,” the reply reads.

    It is now up to the US District Court for the Central District of California to decide whether the case against Cloudflare should be dismissed, or if the models can pursue their claims at trial.

    A copy of Cloudflare’s motion to dismiss the first amended complaint is available here (pdf) and the reply from the models can be found here (pdf)

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. We have some good VPN deals here for the holidays.