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Popular CDN and DDoS protection service Cloudflare has come under a lot of pressure from copyright holders in recent years.<\/p>\nPopular CDN and DDoS protection service Cloudflare has come under a lot of pressure from copyright holders in recent years.<\/p>\n
The company offers its services to millions of sites, some of which offer access to copyright-infringing material.<\/p>\n
Cloudflare prefers to remain a neutral service provider and doesn\u2019t terminate clients based on DMCA notices. Instead, it forwards these to its customers, only taking action when it receives a court order. <\/p>\n
This stance is not appreciated by all rightsholders and in 2018 the service was taken to court over the issue. The case wasn\u2019t filed by major entertainment companies, but by two manufacturers and wholesalers of wedding dresses. Not a typical \u201cpiracy\u201d lawsuit, but it\u2019s a copyright case that could have broad implications.<\/p>\n
In a complaint filed at a federal court in California<\/a>, Mon Cheri Bridals and Maggie Sottero Designs argued that even after multiple warnings, Cloudflare fails to terminate sites operated by counterfeit vendors. This makes Cloudflare liable for the associated copyright infringements, they said.<\/p>\n Cloudflare disagreed and both sides are now conducting discovery to collect evidence for an eventual trial. Among other things, the wedding dress manufacturers were asked to hand over detailed sales records. In addition, the CDN provider is also interested in the companies\u2019 DMCA takedown partner XMLShop LLC.<\/p>\n Over the past few months, Cloudflare has tried to get further information on how XMLShop, which is also known as Counterfeit Technology<\/a>, collects evidence for its takedown notices. <\/p>\n These takedowns play a central role in the lawsuit and XMLShop and its employees could provide crucial information. Thus far, however, Cloudflare hasn\u2019t been able to get what it wants. <\/p>\n To resolve this issue, Cloudflare submitted a motion asking the court to compel the DMCA takedown company to comply with its requests for information. According to their filing, the company may be holding back important evidence. <\/p>\n \u201cPlaintiffs and XMLShop, who use the same counsel, appear to be using XMLShop\u2019s status strategically as a \u2018non-party\u2019 to conceal relevant documents from Cloudflare. The Court should reject their gamesmanship,\u201d Cloudflare informed the court.<\/p>\n After serving two subpoenas, the takedown company only produced one document, Cloudflare notes. Meanwhile, the publicly available information on the company is highly confusing or even misleading. <\/p>\n For example, Cloudflare would like to question XMLShop\u2019s employees, but the company hasn\u2019t handed over an employee directory or payroll log that would reveal who works at the company. <\/p>\n \u201cXMLShop has not been forthright about its operations, leaving Cloudflare in the dark as to who else may be a witness with relevant knowledge,\u201d Cloudflare writes. <\/p>\n According to XMLShop\u2019s attorney, the company only has one employee named Suren Ter-Saakov, but this claim is contradicted by its own website and Linkedin. <\/p>\n \u201cXMLShop\u2019s own public statements contradict its counsel\u2019s statement. Its website boasts \u2018a big team of professionals working in three offices, located in Ukraine, the United States, and Dominican Republic. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd a LinkedIn profile for an individual named Blair Hearnsberger represents that she or he is the CEO at Counterfeit Technology,\u201d Cloudflare adds. <\/p>\n According to the takedown company\u2019s attorney, this profile is fake and Blair Hearnsberger does not actually exist, but Cloudflare is not convinced. Therefore, it hopes that the court will compel XMLShop to verify who works at the company and in what roles.<\/p>\n In addition to finding information on possible employees, Cloudflare also requests further information on the software that Counterfeit Technology used to find infringing content. <\/p>\n The wedding dress manufacturers claimed that their takedown partner \u201cscours the internet with special bots designed to locate and identify the unauthorized use\u201d but it\u2019s unclear how this technology works. <\/p>\n Cloudflare would like to assess the software to see how accurate it is, especially since the company states that it spends only 10 seconds sending notifications of claimed infringement to all traffic sources.<\/p>\n \u201cIts use \u2014 and the reliability \u2014 of that technology is at least relevant to the predicate allegations of direct infringement it asserts. It is also relevant to Cloudflare\u2019s contention that it never received any notifications of claimed infringement from Counterfeit Technology that were valid,\u201d Cloudflare writes. <\/p>\n The CDN provider asked the court to compel XMLShop to produce the subpoenaed documents. In addition, XMLShop should be held in contempt for failing to obey the subpoena and ordered to pay the legal costs Cloudflare incurred to submit the motion.<\/p>\n This week, XMLShop responded to the request stating that it has already produced everything it could. It views the remaining requests as incredibly broad, since these ask for \u201csensitive\u201d trade secret information. It is now up to the court to make a final decision.<\/p>\n \u2014<\/em><\/p>\n A copy of Cloudflare\u2019s memorandum in support of its motion to compel XLMshop to comply with the subpoena is available here (pdf).<\/a>. XMLShop\u2019s response can be found here (pdf)<\/a>. <\/p>\n From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\nCloudflare Wants DMCA Takedown Evidence<\/h2>\n
Who Works at XMLShop?<\/h2>\n
Fake Profile<\/h2>\n
Special Takedown Bots?<\/h2>\n