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posted by takyon on Friday November 23 2018, @09:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the bad-vs.-worse dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Cloudflare Sued for Failing to Terminate Repeat Infringers

In a new complaint filed at a California federal court, Cloudflare stands accused of contributing to, aiding, and abetting copyright infringements. The company fails to terminate customers who are repeatedly called out and is therefore liable, the argument goes. The case in question was not filed by Hollywood or the major record labels, but by two manufacturers of wedding dresses.

[...] In 2016 Cloudflare was sued for contributory copyright infringement by adult publisher ALS Scan. This case ended in a confidential settlement this summer, but now there's more trouble on the horizon for the company.

The new threat doesn't come from any of the major entertainment industry players, but from two manufacturers and wholesalers of wedding dresses. Not a typical "piracy" lawsuit, but it's a copyright case that could have broad effects. In a complaint filed at a federal court in California, Mon Cheri Bridals and Maggie Sottero Designs argue that Cloudflare fails to terminate sites of counterfeit vendors after multiple warnings. This makes Cloudflare liable for the associated copyright infringements, they add.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23 2018, @09:21PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23 2018, @09:21PM (#765677)

    Does CloudFlair have to terminate accounts or just require the "offenders" to remove the copyrighted content? And would that even apply in this case?

    IANAL, but it seems to me that CF provides services that "host" (in a sense) & distribute copies of content for their clients. The counterfeit wedding dresses may be copyrightable, but are the images of them copyrighted? Unless the CF CDN is much more advanced that I've been lead to believe, they aren't piping the wedding dresses (genuine or counterfeit) through their servers.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23 2018, @09:37PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23 2018, @09:37PM (#765689)

    Yes, the images are (C), that is what the complaint is about -- see one of the DMCA takedown notices that is reproduced in tfa.
    Not only are the counterfeiters copying the clothing, they also grab the images from the original adverts. Kind of dumb by the counterfeiters, imo.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23 2018, @10:37PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23 2018, @10:37PM (#765713)

      Kind of dumb by the counterfeiters, imo.

      Thieves who are dumb and lazy? Say it ain't so ...

  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:33AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Saturday November 24 2018, @05:33AM (#765811) Homepage Journal

    I friend of mine operates a data center. It's not specifically a web hosting service, rather he supplies servers and VPSes, so his customers have root on their boxes, however most of them really do serve websites.

    Some of his customers were flogging counterfeit shoes from their sites. What he called "The Shoe Police" threatened to come down really hard on my friend, who only has I think for employees and who lives in a very modest way.

    So he simply terminated service for all those shoe sites.

    Really it can be argued that my friend did not do the right thing, that the most that The Shoe Police could legitimately do is file DMCA Notices for the _images_ of the imitation shoes, but for him to have required him to actually respond that way would result in "Our Legal Firm Can Beat Up Your Lawyer".

    I don't see a solution to this problem. If you can come up with a way for those with modest incomes to defend themselves against an entire high-power legal firm I beg of you to post it.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]