Anti-Piracy Coalition Wants Operators of Pirate Bay, YTS, 1337x, EZTV Uncovered

As one of the leading CDN and DDoS protection services, Cloudflare is used by millions of websites across the globe. This includes many pirate sites.

Copyright holders would ideally like the company to cease its ties with these platforms, but Cloudflare sees things differently. It positions itself as a neutral third-party intermediary that will only take action in response to valid court orders.

Cloudflare DMCA Subpoenas

Thus far, court orders that have required Cloudflare to block or terminate a pirate site have been very limited. More commonly, rightsholders obtain DMCA subpoenas from US courts requiring the CDN provider to hand over information it has on the operators of pirate sites.

During the first half of 2020, Cloudflare received 31 of these requests which targeted 83 accounts. Many of these were adult sites or relatively smaller pirate portals. This month, however, the anti-piracy coalition ACE has upped the ante.

Last week we reported that ACE had obtained a subpoena to go after several pirate streaming sites. This week the crackdown continues, with the anti-piracy coalition requesting Cloudflare to expose information associated with The Pirate Bay and many other high profile sites.

ACE Targets The Pirate Bay and Other Top Pirate Sites

The list of targeted sites (46 in total) includes several of the top torrent sites, including YTS, 1337x, EZTV, LimeTorrents, and Tamilrockers. Other high profile non-English targets such as Cinecalidad, Pelisplus, Gnula, Altadefinizione, and DonTorrent are listed as well.

The subpoena is requested by the MPA’s Jan Van Voorn, who writes on behalf of ACE and its members Amazon, Columbia Pictures, Disney, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, and Universal City Studios. The requested information will help the anti-piracy group to investigate the sites in question.

“The purpose for which this subpoena is sought is to obtain the identities of the individuals assigned to these websites who have exploited ACE Members’ exclusive rights in their copyrighted works without their authorization,” the request reads.

“This information will only be used for the purposes of protecting the rights granted under Title 17, United States Code,” Van Voorn adds.

Cloudflare Will Hand Over Personal Details

At the time of writing the subpoena has yet to be signed off by a court clerk, but that is usually not a problem. ACE will then forward it to Cloudflare which will hand over the requested details, including names, IP-addresses, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, and payment details.

How useful the provided information will be to ACE remains to be seen. Many of the affected pirate sites should be aware of the possibility that their information can be shared, and could have taken precautions.

Why Now?

Aside from the many high profile targets in this legal request, ACE’s sudden attention to Cloudflare DMCA subpoenas is interesting by itself.

In the span of just a few days, ACE has asked the company to identify the operators of more than 80 sites. Many of these sites, including The Pirate Bay, have been Cloudflare customers for years. Why ACE has decided to take action now, as opposed to years ago, is unknown.

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– yts.mx
– pelisplus.me
– 1337x.to F
– seasonvar.ru
– cuevana3.io
– kinogo.by
– thepiratebay.org
– lordfilm.cx
– swatchseries.to
– eztv.io
– 123movies.la
– megadede.com
– sorozatbarat.online
– cinecalidad.is
– limetorrents.info
– cinecalidad.to
– kimcartoon.to F
– tamilrockers.ws
– cima4u.io
– fullhdfilmizlesene.co
– yggtorrent.si
– time2watch.io
– online-filmek.me
– lordfilms-s.pw
– extremedown.video
– streamkiste.tv
– dontorrent.org
– kinozal.tv
– fanserial.net
– 5movies.to
– altadefinizione.group
– cpasmieux.org
– primewire.li
– primewire.ag
– primewire.vc
– series9.to
– europixhd.io
– oxtorrent.pw
– pirateproxy.voto
– rarbgmirror.org
– rlsbb.ru
– gnula.se
– rarbgproxied.org
– seriespapaya.nu
– tirexo.com
– cb01.events
– kinox.to
– filmstoon.pro
– descargasdd.net