Cloudflare: We Can't Shut Down Pirate Sites (torrentfreak.com) 140
CloudFlare has said it cannot shut down piracy websites. The CloudFlare's response comes two months after adult entertainment outfit ALS Scan filed a complaint at a California federal court two months ago in which the company accused the CDN service of various counts of copyright and trademark infringement. From a TorrentFreak report:"CloudFlare is not the operator of the allegedly infringing sites but is merely one of the many intermediaries across the internet that provide automated CDN services, which result in the websites in question loading a bit faster than they would if they did not utilize CDN services." If Cloudflare terminated the accounts of allegedly infringing websites, the sites themselves would still continue to exist. It would just require a simple DNS reconfiguration to continue their operation. "Indeed, there are no measures of any kind that CloudFlare could take to prevent this alleged infringement, because the termination of CloudFlare's CDN services would have no impact on the existence and ability of these allegedly infringing websites to continue to operate," Cloudflare writes. As such, the company argues that it's not "materially contributing" to any of the alleged copyright infringements.
Passing the buck? (Score:2)
I think CloudFlare's comments are accurate, but I'm no expert.
Re:Passing the buck? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll play an expert. CloudFlare are lying. Though it is correct, that "a simple DNS reconfiguration" would allow the pirates to continue to exist, their bandwidth requirements will go much higher and they would not be able to do as much damage to the intellectual property owners.
Think, for example, of banks blocking money-laundering — it does not stop whatever activity generates the criminals' profits. But it makes the criminals' lives (much) harder.
The reaction and attitudes of Slashdot and other crowds will, once again, boil down to those towards the original activity. People frowning on copyright infringement will denounce CloudFlare. Others will celebrate the pirates getting off for a while longer.
But technically CloudFlare's arguments are bullshit — and they know it.
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ALS Scan filed a complaint
And thus we saw to the uterus of the argument as it would have been spread out with a speculum.. :)
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I do not frown on the copyright infringement; However, I agree, that CloudFlare is perjuring themself if they say "They can't shut down the sites".
While they cannot "keep the sites offline"; pulling their service will, at least for the short term block a venue for accessing those sites.
This is not true.
Their web hosting providers could ma
Re:Passing the buck? (Score:4, Insightful)
So you are suggesting that CDN services should shoulder the burden of investigating what their clients are using their services for?
Do you think ISPs should need to do the same?
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Former 8 year ISP employee:
Yes, after they've been informed of it. That's the entire point of the safe harbor laws. You don't have to be proactive; you *do* have to respond once you've been notified that there's a problem -- or facilitate the challenging of the notice -- otherwise you're aiding and abetting.
In this case, CloudFlare is full of shit. "They're just a customer of ours!" is no excuse whatsoever. By accepting money in exchange for their HTTP proxying services, they're in a commercial transaction
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Once they've identified the hosting provider, they can easily get another warrant for the account details held there and the servers hosting the site. They, then, have two sets of billing details identifying one or more
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No, I really don't think he's saying that.
I think he's saying that after someone points a loaded gun at a CDN's face, complaining about one of the CDN's customers, the CDN should either step aside or accept their imminent oblivion.
Just like ISPs.
Once someone has credibly threatened to use force against you, you ARE going to be shouldering some burden, period. (We're past word
Re:Passing the buck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you draw the line, if I'm *suspected* of running, oh i dunno... an illegal unpasteurized milk business from my home, should the telephone company be obligated to cancel my service? Should the power company be obligated to turn off the power? Should the snow clearing company be obligated not to clear my driveway?
While they cannot "keep the sites offline"; pulling their service will, at least for the short term block a venue for accessing those sites.
Yes, and the power company, telephone company, and snow plow all pulling their services will all make it more difficult for my 'customers' to access my illegal services. That doesn't make them contributors to it.
If knowingly extending CDN services to any of these websites, CloudFlare can legitimately said to be aiding and abetting the distribution of their content by those websites.
And if you tell my snowplow guy you suspect I'm delivering illegal milk (remember I haven't even been charged yet, nevermind convicted... you could be a busybody for all he knows), but he's now aiding and abetting the distribution of illegal milk by clearing my driveway? Really? That's how you think the world should be?
I think CDNs should be treated as neutral in this. If a court asks them (via subpoena) for a the contact / billing information for the allegedly infringing site then they would have to turn it over. But I don't thin the CDN is aiding and abetting the illegal activity any more than the telco is for running the wires, or the power company is for providing the electricity.
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Grow-ops have the power cut all the time. Why should an illegal raw milk distributor be any different?
They can also cut your physical phone line, terminate your phone service (once they seize your bank account, everything else will be cut eventually anyway), and barricade your entrance so the snowplow guy can't plow, though he won't bother once your checks are returned.
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Grow-ops have the power cut all the time.
Are you absolutely sure? Can you find a cite for that?
I know unusual power consumption is actively used to *identify* grow ups, but I don't think the power company is ever obligated to cut power. I mean... why bother? Once they know where they are they just go collect the plants.
From what I can tell grow ops losing power is usually initiated by the utility itself because the grow up was actually stealing the electricity (ie not paying for it) and the only reason the courts get involved with that is because
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Here you go [dailycommercialnews.com]
Once police enter a grow-op, they order electricity to be cut to the building and register a Make Safe order against the property. The Electrical Safety Authority will only restore power when the building is made habitable according to a report from a qualified engineering firm or industrial hygienist.
Even suspected grow-ps have their power cut [bclocalnews.com]
A older home on No. 7 Road had its power off for three weeks after evidence of tampering was found on its old meter. But the tenant was never informed what the problem was, and instead was told BC Hydro suspected it was a grow-op.
Meter tampering usually means there's a grow-op.
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Both links aren't really about shutting down power to curtail illegal activity, per se. Both struck me as more safety related -- in the first they mention illegally bypassed meters (theft of electricty) as well as the status of the buildings being unsafe for human habitation etc (due to mold, humidity, and dangerous wiring etc... ) The power was NOT cut because generic illegal activity had taken place ... it was cut because the wiring situation there was a hazard.
Likewise, the 2nd article, the main reason t
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And when you argue that "That's a long way from it being used to deny a criminal electricy (sic)" you're overlooking the obvious - meter tampering is illegal.in and of itself, as is theft of electricity.
I'm not overlooking the obvious. They cut off the electricity when the electricity use itself is either wired dangerously, or itself being stolen. There is a definite correlation between grow-ops stealing electricty, and of violating all building codes when runnign their lighting wiring.
But that is a long way from cutting off power that is wired safely to code, that is being paid for properly, simply because it is being used in support of a criminal enterprise.
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Now, should unpasteurized milk (copied media) be legal or less restricted? Probably so.
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They are, for better or worse, more materially related to your illegal business.
And that's i guess where you are trying to 'draw the line' between peripherally or incidentally related and 'materially' related. But i don't think it's a very clear line -- perhaps snowclearing my driveway is on one side and fedex actually carrying packages for me is on the other?
But without both, my milk isn't going anywhere; so who's to say that the snow clearing isn't material?
As for the vendor selling me cows and milking isn't that like arguing the gun store is somehow responsible for what people do wi
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And is the website operator announcing the CDN that's he's going to commit a crime?
No.
So....where does that leave your argument?
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Crap. Posting to undo moderation. Meant to mod you up and missed.
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should the telephone company be obligated to cancel my service?
These are bad comparisons. CloudFlare's service provided to a website is not like the phone service.
It's more like a delivery company (such as UPS) delivering their illegal parcels to customers, And they have been informed that the parcels they are being given to deliver are illegal.
Should the power company be obligated to turn off the power? Should the snow clearing company be obligated not to clear my driveway?
If a court directive or i
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The takedown notice is a broke device that causes harm when used improperly.
There are streaming service/online sales and rights management companies indie bands stay away from like tunecore... for sending take down notices to the bands official website or youtube channels.
I do graphic arts for some indie label bands and have heard horror stories about take downs being sent to their hosting providers and youtube channels that have been shutdown at the launch of a new album or release of a video. These bands
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The takedown notice is a broke device that causes harm when used improperly.
I agree in principle, but I still support CloudFlare having to do the takedowns just as any other webhost would. The law is what the law is, but the law must not be enforced differently for CloudFlare than for any other hosting provider.
Inconsistent application of the law, and failing to apply it to powerful people or companies would mean that unjust laws don't get fixed.
To get the takedown notice law fixed properly; It is very
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To get the takedown notice law fixed properly; It is very important that our courts and judges apply the law to every company that applies to.
The problem is it's been over 15 years of complaints and nothing has happened because a judge will never have the opportunity. Companies are flooded with dmca complaints that they are unable to confirm and saying that they will go to court causes the legitimate ones to lawyer up and those that aren't to drop the complaint and quietly move on to the next target with the hope that they can extort a settlement.
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nothing has happened because a judge will never have the opportunity.
It's not about a 'judge having the opportunity'. Laws are changed by congress.
It's congress that needs to be convinced, and powerful entities such as CloudFlare are the companies that can do it.
The lawyers stopped listening to you and me, a long time ago........
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I'll play an expert. CloudFlare are lying. Though it is correct, that "a simple DNS reconfiguration" would allow the pirates to continue to exist, their bandwidth requirements will go much higher and they would not be able to do as much damage to the intellectual property owners.
Think, for example, of banks blocking money-laundering — it does not stop whatever activity generates the criminals' profits. But it makes the criminals' lives (much) harder.
The reaction and attitudes of Slashdot and other crowds will, once again, boil down to those towards the original activity. People frowning on copyright infringement will denounce CloudFlare. Others will celebrate the pirates getting off for a while longer.
But technically CloudFlare's arguments are bullshit — and they know it.
Except ALS Scan wants to DDOS them off the internet which is *illegal* so they can go to hell.
I disagree, you're creating an impossible standard (Score:1)
The sites will exist without them and they're not taking them offline, they're just making them harder to find.
The sites are still accessible via IP even without the DNS and it's not their job to police the internet. While we can make reasonable guesses in some cases, the fact that IP rightsholders have put out phony "leaked" content (and even DMCA'd themselves) remains, so NO ONE but the copyright holder has any idea who they've actually given permission to. And in some cases, even the copyright holder i
Re:Passing the buck? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course they're lying. Quote
he termination of CloudFlare's CDN services would have no impact on the existence and ability of these allegedly infringing websites to continue to operate
If it would make now impact, why are they in business? Kind of hard to get people to buy a service that doesn't do anything.
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Of course they're lying. Quote
he termination of CloudFlare's CDN services would have no impact on the existence and ability of these allegedly infringing websites to continue to operate
If it would make now impact, why are they in business? Kind of hard to get people to buy a service that doesn't do anything.
There is a difference between impacting ability to operate and impacting ability to operate at a given service level.
Cloudflare is absolutely correct. If they kick off sites that are being accused of copyright infringement, it doesn't make those sites go away. It's just more cost effective for the alleged criminal enterprise to use a CDN service, not necessarily cost prohibitive to not use one.
Cloudflare is being asked to chop off revenue streams based on a flawed premise. If it actually would make a differ
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Also, then it's easy to shut down the site because they're not hiding behind CloudFlare.
Until they hide behind something else.
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Also, then it's easy to shut down the site because they're not hiding behind CloudFlare.
Until they hide behind something else.
Maybe others won't take them on as customers because they don't need the legal scrutiny?
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CloudFlare makes pages load faster by distributing content from servers that are closer to the client. If the site is hosted in the US but the client is in Europe and the site has CloudFlare, some of the content will be served from a European Cloudflare server.
They also provide additional services like DDOS protection, spam protection, Tor user blocking etc.
If they withdrew services from allegedly infringing sites, those sites would load a bit slower for some users and might have to spend money on additiona
Boycotting pirates (Score:2)
Indeed. Once a wrong-doer using their services is identified, CloudFare — and all other enablers, including the ISP — can be expected to stop the enabling.
Unless, of course, you don't think, the "alleged pirates" are doing anything wrong, do you?
Yeah, there is no point in vegetarianism: if I don't eat this steak, somebody else would. And a great defense fo
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Of course according to your bullshit logic cloudflare is a fluffy bunny charity and provides it services at a loss. No, they charge for it and they charge more for the service they provide than what it costs them. People use cloud flare to avoid setting up their own 'secure' services, the ability to distribute without disruption, due to local conditions and very local conditions (inside the building). All they do is relocate bandwidth problems away from local services and distribute those loads securely ac
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they charge for it and they charge more for the service they provide than what it costs them
Funny, I've been using them for years and I've never paid them a cent. If $0.00 is more than it costs them, that cost would appear to be negative.
No, the reality is that the bandwidth and minuscule amount of storage required by most sites is far a cheaper advertising cost than, say, AdWords; so, they give their core CDN service away literally for free and bank on charging for more enterprise-level features.
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Say FedEx was knowingly carrying packages that carried illegal child pornography. And say they knew which customers were shipping them and could easily stop just those packages. They could raise this kind of argument: "We aren't materially contributing to the distribution of the child pornography because if we didn't ship them, they would just drive them themselves. So there's no point in us refusing to knowingly transport illegal child pornography. Don't even ask us."
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If you actually want to see a criminal organization taken dow
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Re:Passing the buck? (Score:4, Informative)
They are not a publisher nor do they host content. The DMCA is properly sent to the actual hosting provider or the publisher.
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They CACHE the data. That is, if they don't have an in-date cache of the requested resource, they fetch it from your actual hosting provider. Lawyers, judges, and congressmen can argue it out and decide if they are LEGALLY equivalent to a hosting provider but thus far, no such determination has been made.
Let's say I have a bunch of HTML and images I want to put on the web. So I call CloudFlare and ask them where do I upload them. They tell me I need to get a hosting provider first...
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Or the pirate sites could just relocate inside of tor, thus obviating the need for a CDN. Only way to DDoS a .onion site would mean DDoSing all of tor.
And given the US government hates a lot of the sites on tor and hasn't been particularly successful at killing the ones that it hates the most (only rarely succeeding) I think tor is a safe bet to escape from DMCA type laws.
In fact, tor was specifically designed to help people get away with breaking the laws of various countries.
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You know, I think maybe our proxy at work caches website data. I know my browser on my computer does. If a computer is temporarily storing data in order to make responses faster, exactly where is the delineation that makes the cached data something illegal?
I know that my local browser cache isn't sharing publicly, and I know my proxy at work isn't sharing files with the rest of the world. I know it's different. Is that the line? Is that the demarcation? Does Cloudflare review the contents of what they are s
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It's simple algorithmic caching. You request a URL. It looks to see if it has a copy AND that the copy is recent enough (I don't know how long is enough but it's on the order of an hour). If so, it serves it to you itself. Otherwise it fetches it from the actual host and passes it on (retaining a copy for the cache).
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If a computer is temporarily storing data in order to make responses faster, exactly where is the delineation that makes the cached data something illegal?
Perhaps where the computer in question is owned by an entity that is paid by the infringer to cache said content? I'm no lawyer, but I don't see CloudFlare's arguments holding up real well in front of a judge. Perhaps they are doing this to show that they just won't rollover over takedown requests and that they will require court orders to do so. They may need that to legitimately void the contracts without prejudice.
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Caching is no different from distributing once you know your source is illegal. A lot of parts of the DMCA suck, but that's pretty much the only sensible principle of the entire thing.
Re:Passing the buck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the DMCA simply limits the amount of time a cache of content identified to be infringing may be held (that is, says they cannot become a de-facto host of the material). It defines the notification to be served when the host of the data takes it down. CloudFlare and other CDNs expire cache well wityhin that time.
In other words, the claimant must notify the HOST who then must take the data down. Any CDN must then let the cache expire.
So it's fairly exllicit who must be notified and who must do the take-down and it's not CloudFlare.
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Why don't you go read the law like I did.
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If you want to make up pretend versions of the law, fine. I'll go with the one that actually matters.
Read 512(b) [copyright.gov]. I presume copyright.gov is reasonably authoritative?
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Unless the claim is that the pirate sites are using unlicensed images and ripped off site templates (which it is fully possible and more than likely that they are doing; though I don't understand that to be the nature of the claims against them), CloudFlare is not contributing to the piracy in any way.
Good (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm getting sick & tired of this new mindset that everything in the world is less important than US corporate copyright.
Re:Well, I'd avoid that paticular legal team. (Score:5, Insightful)
FTFY. Accusation is not proof, particularly when said accusation comes from actors not noted for their ethics.
This will fail. (Score:2)
there are no measures of any kind that CloudFlare could take to prevent this alleged infringement, because the termination of CloudFlare's CDN services would have no impact on the existence and ability of these allegedly infringing websites to continue to operate,"
The exact same argument could be made for hosting torrents; if you don't stop every "seeder", a torrent will still be shared. I don't expect the judge will buy this argument but strangers things have happened.
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Imagine the MAFIAAs shutting down utorrent or deluge or bitcomet or whatever software client, for "materially contributing" to illicit torrent activity. You have a confused lawyer at best.
CloudFlare DNS (Score:2)
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the rightful owners, who legally have the right to decide who they sell to in the first place
I don't understand how refusing to sell at any price (e.g. Song of the South) fulfills copyright's purpose: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
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Is current law worth keeping on the books if it fails to benefit the public?
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Copyright law still benefits people. There'd be no GPL without it. Also, without copyright laws there;d be far more draconian DRM. Remember back in the days wiith custom floppies with laser burns that couldn't be copied without both a PC Tools option board (special floppy controller) and software that would allow the board to maintain a copy of the unreadable bits and return errors when those bad ones were read, or when they would intercept write requests and return just the bits that were readable on the o
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Copyright law still benefits people.
Overall it does. In some specific situations, it does not. One category of these is a copyright owner deliberately keeping a previously published or publicly exhibited work out of print everywhere or in particular countries. An example of this is Song of the South. Another is uncertainty over whether a song you've written is legally original, as opposed to an accidental infringement of copyright in someone else's song. An example of this is "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison. Why are those specific cases wo
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What steps should a songwriter take to prevent a similar mistake?
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Poor Logic (Score:2)
CloudFlare, I love you, but quit trying to weasel out of your responsibilities to respond to abuse complaints.
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From CloudFlare's own Terms of Service [cloudflare.com]:
"Cause for such termination shall include, but not be limited to:
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Admission (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn! They just admitted that they are irrelevant.
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How so? I didn't get that. What I got out of the article is that CloudFlare is claiming they are just a caching service. They don't know or care what the underlying content is, and that even if they close down, the content still remains available via whatever the original distribution method was.
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If CloudFlare would stop providing bulletproof hosting for criminals and spammers, the internet would be a better place.
Eh? CloudFlare provides hosting now? That's news to me.
Oh, wait, they don't.
If CloudFlare were to stop providing hosting to these sites, they would first have to start providing hosting to these sites. This would, arguably, make the internet a worse place, at least temporarily.
They could easily prove it... (Score:1)
Cloudflare can't be the 100% solution... (Score:2)
.
That's what it looks like to me.
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They do not even want to stop being part of the problem.
That would require there to be a problem in the first place. There is no problem.
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I wouldn't want to provide even the slightest aid or comfort, in any way, shape, or form, to the RIAA, MPAA, ASCAP, Metallica, or any one of that particular basket of deplorables. And I would take great glee in refusing to do so, and doing anything within my power to subvert their desires.
Yes, CloudFlare for other reasons are a bunch of asshats. But the likes of Rosen, Valenti, Ulrich, and the rest of their loathsome ilk? Evil. Pure and simple by way of the eighth dimension. A pox upon all their houses
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Or they don't want to be judge, jury, and executioner. Remember, they have not been told by a judge that the customer is infringing, it has simply been alleged. Since they are not the hosting provider, it is far from clear that they are at all responsible for following a DMCA notice.
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Actually, they are a cache. It actually does matter. If a hotel uses a web cache on it's network, is the hotel a hosting provider?
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I did a bit of looking and the DMCA explicitly calls out a difference. It also states that the cache must expire the content in a reasonable time after the HOST takes the material down.
they could shut down spammer web sites too (Score:1)
Many spammers use Cloudflare to shield their web sites from being taken down. Even when abuse@cloudflare.com is presented with overwhelming evidence they are protecting spammers, they do nothing. I can only assume they believe it is more profitable for them to ignore the takedown requests than spend money taking care of the problem.
Real CDNs have "Terms Of Serivce" (Score:3)
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customers like this
Customers like what? Victims of frivolous statements? The customer has not been found guilty of anything (yet). Do you want random companies to be judge and jury?
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They are too smart to get into the TOS enforcement quagmire. The moment they begin stopping service for copyright infringement, they become copyright investigators. Random takedown request comes in, now they have to verify if it is genuine, if the person/robot sending it owns copyright on the material, if the site really does hold that content, and if the site really doesn't have permission to hold it. Screw up any of these checks and one side or the other will rightly blame them and publicly complain about
We are all helping to commit crimes: (Score:2)
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Set your default gateway to 127.0.0.1, this is a free service that blocks all attacks from CDN providers.
My host is the router (Score:1)
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Re: Kill ugly Cloudflare traffic (Score:2, Insightful)
Can you explain how you are attacked by CF ip addresses? I'm a CF customer but can't see how CF could attack you.
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It can't. OP is either a troll or doesn't know the difference between a hosting provider and a CDN.
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Can you explain how you are attacked by CF ip addresses? I'm a CF customer but can't see how CF could attack you.
Hackers must be spoofing their addresses so they look like they come from Cloudflare. People don't want to block Cloudflare so that makes them harder to filter.