Cloudflare Slams MPAA and RIAA's 'Distorted' Piracy Claims (torrentfreak.com)

Cloudflare has hit back at the entertainment industry's anti-piracy groups, RIAA and MPAA, which accused the service of helping pirate sites to hide. From a TorrentFreak report:Cloudflare was not pleased with this description, to say the least, and has now sent a rebuttal to the U.S. Trade Representative. The company highlights that it's a legitimate business and scolds the MPAA and RIAA for their misleading descriptions. "The submissions by the RIAA and MPAA present distorted descriptions of services that companies like Cloudflare provide. These descriptions fail to provide the USTR with an accurate description of the true intent, purpose, and value of Cloudflare's services," Cloudflare's General Counsel Doug Kramer writes. The company is disappointed in the industry groups, which fail to mention the efforts they have taken so far to address abuse. "Potentially even more troubling than the RIAA and MPAA's descriptions of Cloudflare's services is their complete omission of Cloudflare's efforts to address the small minority of users about which they complain."

Comments

The first casualty of war is truth.

[Anonymous Coward]

These are organizations who are willing to take resources away from counter-terrorism because little Timmy might download the new star wars. They're serial liars and utterly shameless. Libelling a company is small potatoes.

Re:The first casualty of war is truth.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are trying to usher in the era of immaterial property money milking. When petrodollar falls, IP is their next attempt at global robbery.

Re:The first casualty of war is truth.

[Doctor_Jest]

That's why I don't believe in imaginary property. (ProTip: Neither did the Founders.)

No way!!!!

[downright]

Are you telling me that the RIAA and the MPAA are just a bunch of dicks???? Well here is how we fight back:

Movie tickets for 2 ... $20
Snacks for 2 ... $25
Quality of the reboot movie cause that is all they do anymore ... regrettable
The bedbugs you bring home ... priceless ( to the bedbugs )

RIAA and MPAA should go after people illegally copying bedbugs while attending their movies.

The interesting question is "why?"

[TodPunk]

I find it more compelling to know why these tactics work and how they are used in various places. Lawyers aren't known for presenting accurate descriptions of anything, since their whole job is to present as slanted and outlandishly biased a narrative as can be legally produced. A murder trial will see both sides omitting critical evidence unless obligated not to and not having plausible deniability. Why then do we expect such a politically charged case to be any different? Why does this surprise us enough to be news?

More importantly, why do we think the judge might not be aware of this in the first place? Are they? If not, can we solve that /actual/ problem?

Re:The interesting question is "why?"

[rtb61]

These tactics work because what you see is just the marketing, basically the barest bit of PR=B$ to cover over the shenanigans going on in the background. What is going on in the background, offshore tax haven bribes, physical access to young gullible hopeful performers at drug laced parties, campaign contributions, complete distortions of reality in main stream media and as a result actual corporate lawyers writing laws, that corrupt politicians don't even bother to read but vote on them because sex, drugs, and money (all that bloody ugly and lame).

Re:The interesting question is "why?"

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it more compelling to know why these tactics work and how they are used in various places.

Because ??AA lobbyists give suitcases full of money to make sure that corrupt politicians see it from their perspective.

Piracy should be the least of their concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

CloudFlare has many criminal customers. Check out this recent list of DDoS/"Stresser"/"Booter" websites serviced by CloudFlare:

alphastress.com, anonymous-stresser.net, aurastresser.com, beststresser.com, boot4free.com, booter.eu, booter.org, booter.xyz, bullstresser.com, buybooters.com, cnstresser.com, connectionstresser.com, crazyamp.me, critical-boot.com, cstress.net, cyberstresser.org, darkstresser.info, darkstresser.net, databooter.com, ddos-fighter.com, ddos-him.com, ddos.city, ddosbreak.com, ddosclub.com, ddostheworld.com, defcon.pro, destressbooter.com, destressnetworks.com, diamond-stresser.net, diebooter.com, diebooter.net, down-stresser.com, downthem.org, exitus.to, exostress.in, free-boot.xyz, freebooter4.me, freestresser.xyz, grimbooter.com, heavystresser.com, hornystress.me, iddos.net, inboot.me, instabooter.com, ipstresser.co, ipstresser.com, jitterstresser.com, k-stress.pw, layer-4.com, layer7.pw, legionboot.com, logicstresser.net, mercilesstresser.com, mystresser.com, netbreak.ec, netspoof.net, networkstresser.com, neverddos.com, nismitstresser.net, onestress.com, onestresser.net, parabooter.com, phoenixstresser.com, pineapple-stresser.com, powerstresser.com, privateroot.fr, purestress.net, quantumbooter.net, quezstresser.com, ragebooter.net, rawlayer.com, reafstresser.ga, restricted-stresser.info, routerslap.com, sharkstresser.com, signalstresser.com, silence-stresser.com, skidbooter.info, spboot.net, stormstresser.net, str3ssed.me, stressboss.net, stresser.club, stresser.in, stresser.network, stresser.ru, stresserit.com, synstress.net, titaniumbooter.net, titaniumstresser.net, topstressers.com, ts3booter.net, unseenbooter.com, vbooter.org, vdos-s.com, webbooter.com, webstresser.co, wifistruggles.com, xboot.net, xr8edstresser.com, xtreme.cc, youboot.net

If CloudFlare would stop providing bulletproof hosting for criminals and spammers, the internet would be a better place. But CloudFlare apparently loves its criminal customers. DDoS purveyors, terrorist websites, malware distributors, CloudFlare seems to welcome them all to its hive of scum and villainy. Maybe it's time to revive the concept of the Usenet Death Penalty and apply it to all traffic to and from CloudFlare. They're the sewer of the internet and should be null routed and de-peered.

See also: CloudFlare Watch

Re:Piracy should be the least of their concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Some random website with 5000 iframe tags barely qualifies as bush league in terms of "criminals".

Did the "hackers" who uncovered "terrorist websites" bother to report them? Let me guess, you think cloudflare should be personally responsible for inspecting every last customer? Perhaps instead of an Internet Death Penalty, we need a Luddite Death Penalty. Applied to you: every grocery store you go to, you are interrogated for hours during checkout until it can be determined that you are not a terrorist. The gas station will not dispense fuel until the attendant is convinced you will not use the vehicle for any crimes up to and including exceeding the speed limit. Your house purchase will be delayed until every item you own has been cleared by law enforcement officers before you are allowed to put anything into the house you just bought.

Wouldn't want to provide any service or product to a criminal now, would we?

Re:Piracy should be the least of their concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the "hackers" who uncovered "terrorist websites" bother to report them?

Yes, and CloudFlare's CEO went on to make light of the situation, saying "Even if we were hosting sites for ISIS, I should imagine those kinds of people pay with stolen credit cards and so that's a negative for us."

Re:Piracy should be the least of their concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Clouldflare hides child porn sites, they definitely know about it, and do absolutely nothing about it.

Likewise, all the recent "you've won an iphone" phising sites are all through cloudflare as well.

Cloudflare makes sure it is absolutely useless to report anything because you can not get the ip address of the host behind the domain, nor will it pull the domain hosting for piracy sites like 8muses or yiffparty.

Re:Piracy should be the least of their concerns

[Ash-Fox]

If CloudFlare would stop providing bulletproof hosting for criminals and spammers, the internet would be a better place.

But they existed and prospered before Cloudflare was even around. So no, it wouldn't be a better place.

Re:Piracy should be the least of their concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny you should mention this. The scumbags are hosting Islamic Army sites. From a government source:

In fact, two of ISIS’ top three online chat forums— including the notorious Alplatformmedia.com—are currently guarded by CloudFlare. Without such protection from CloudFlare, these sites would almost certainly succumb to the same relentless online attacks that have completely collapsed several major jihadi web forums over the past two years.

Copyright Infringement is not Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Pirate" is a word used to frame the argument in favor of the MPAA and RIAA. Stop using it!

Re:Copyright Infringement is not Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a photo of some real pirates: http://fm.cnbc.com/application... These are actual dangerous criminals that actually hurt people and steal things. This is who the MPAA and RIAA are equating people who commit copyright infringement with. Isn't there some way we can collectively laugh the MPAA and RIAA out of court?

Interesting question

[Anonymous Coward]

Has the MPAA or RIAA *EVER* told the truth? About anything?