Piracy Liability Dispute Between Universal Music and Cloudflare Reaches EU’s Highest Court
Pirate sites have proven to be quite a headache for Cloudflare and have landed the San Francisco-based tech company in court on several occasions. These legal battles include a case in Germany, where the local branch of Universal Music sued Cloudflare for offering its services to pirate site DDL-Music. The origins of this case date back to June 2019, when the German branch of Universal Music sent a copyright infringement notice to...
EUIPO Study: Major Brand Ads on Pirate Sites Surged 567%
For many pirate sites and apps, ad revenue is the only viable lifeline. This is why the advertising industry is an important ally in the fight against piracy. Over the years, several ad-focused anti-piracy initiatives and partnerships have tried to prevent branded ads from appearing on these sites. This includes a European Union-led Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in which several leading advertising companies, including Google,...
Tokyo Court Finds Cloudflare Liable For Manga Piracy in Long-Running Lawsuit
Offering a wide range of services useful for the majority of websites, including many provided completely free of charge, Cloudflare continues on an upward trajectory. While its popularity isn’t in question, Cloudflare’s stance on copyright issues has placed it at odds with copyright holders who believe that the company should do more to fight against piracy. For its part, Cloudflare counters that its policies are in line or exceed...
Torrent Giant YTS Returns to .LT Domain After .MX ‘Vanishes’
With millions of regular users, YTS is arguably the most visited torrent site on the internet today. The current operators ‘unofficially’ took over the YTS brand in 2015 after the original group threw in the towel. Since then, it has amassed a rather impressive user base. After adopting one of the most iconic piracy brands, YTS faced its fair share of legal troubles. In 2019, the popular torrent site and its operator were accused of...
Operation Endpoint: Pirate IPTV Services Down After Raids & Several Arrests
Brazil’s Special Task Force to Combat Organized Crime (Gaeco), part of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Ceará (MPCE), carried out a large operation on Tuesday targeting individuals and companies believed to be behind several pirate streaming platforms. With assistance from the Civil Police of Ceará (PCCE), Operation Endpoint saw the execution of 19 search and seizure warrants and five arrest warrants in Alagoas (AL), Ceará (CE) and...
LaLiga: ISPs Must Join Anti-Piracy War to Secure Broadcasting Rights
For much of 2025, top-tier Spanish football league LaLiga has waged war against online piracy in controversial yet completely unapologetic fashion. A more single-minded approach may not have been deployed by any other entity, ever. Launched around February, LaLiga’s persistent blocking of Cloudflare (and by extension, countless innocent customers) is a story still being told from distinct perspectives. In LaLiga’s view, a court order...
