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Cloudflare Faces Lawsuit For Assisting Pirate Sites (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader shares a TorrentFreak report: In recent months CloudFlare has been called out repeatedly for offering its services to known pirate sites, including The Pirate Bay. These allegations have now resulted in the first lawsuit after adult entertainment publisher ALS Scan filed a complaint against CloudFlare at a California federal court. [...] Copyright holders are not happy with CloudFlare's actions. Just recently, the Hollywood-affiliated group Digital Citizens Alliance called the company out for helping pirate sites to stay online. Adult entertainment outfit ALS Scan agrees and has now become the first dissenter to take CloudFlare to court. In a complaint filed at a California federal court, ALS describes piracy as the greatest threat to its business. The rise of online piracy has significantly hurt the company's profits, they argue, noting that "pirate" sites are not the only problem. "The problems faced by ALS are not limited to the growing presence of sites featuring infringing content, or 'pirate' sites. A growing number of service providers are helping pirate sites thrive by supporting and engaging in commerce with these sites," ALS writes.
Server companies sell servers that these pirates use, sue them also. Computer makers make computers that pirates use so sue them also. Networking companies provide the bandwidth for pirates to trade copyrighted files so sue them also. Hey, all of these things use electricity so let's sue the electric company also!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
This hearkens back to the mid-late 90's when Spamford Wallace was being courted by one sleazebag ISP after another. As long as he paid them handsomely, they would ignore abuse complaints. Until the blacklists came about. Someone suggested yesterday about resurrecting the Usenet Death Penalty for Cloudflare, because of their blatant protection for sleazy companies (they were talking about the company that is serving malicious ads on Slashot, that do a full page overlay and redirect you to a scam site, of which it's particularly invasive on a mobile device).
If I had massive crime on the street I lived on, my responsibility would be to protect myself and my property.
Imagine that during that crime spree a a local business owner told me that a thief (that had robbed the business down the street) hid in my basement and would not leave. If the business owner came over and said "there is a thief hiding in your basement and I want to get him". I would refuse entry. I would tell him to call the police. If I did my own internal investigation and found that a thief might be hiding there, I would also choose to call the police.
However, under no foreseeable circumstances would I let the business owner in to deal with the criminal. Furthermore, if the business owner continuously asked me to check for thieves, it would be a great inconvenience for me. I would tell them to take a hike and call the police if you have real evidence.
If you really think you have a case, get a prosecutor to go after CloudFlare. Until then, CloudFlare has every right to deal with it internally or just ignore the issue.
We have seen companies using the guise of DMCA violations for sabotaging competition, corporate espionage, and more. If I were CloudFlare, I would also do all I could to remain the neutral party and just focus on serving paying customers.