{"id":77936,"date":"2024-07-08T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2024-07-08T09:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=77936"},"modified":"2024-07-08T09:00:42","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T09:00:42","slug":"cloudflare-blocks-pirate-sites-after-web-sheriff-filed-laundry-list-of-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=77936","title":{"rendered":"Cloudflare Blocks Pirate Sites After Web Sheriff Filed Laundry List of Violations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"error451-s\"<\/a>Retelling a few funny stories about the early antics of Web Sheriff might be quite fun. At least until the realization that was around sixteen years ago when the internet wasn\u2019t facing a serious threat of censorship and regulation.<\/p>\n

So much has changed since then it would be difficult to recapture the essence of those stories today. However, the Web Sheriff\u2019s plan to board and then scuttle The Pirate Bay stands out as a watershed moment in the development of alternate realities in the anti-piracy space.<\/p>\n

Planned in absolute secrecy apart from a few press releases, it involved the formation of an elite unit<\/a> to take down The Pirate Bay, once and for all. Led by a Sheriff, the team consisted of a construction worker, a cowboy, an intimidating fellow dressed head to foot in black leather, a policeman, a gentleman resplendent in full Indian regalia, and a lone GI bravely bringing up the rear.<\/p>\n

\"ymca-piratebay-s\"<\/a>Some say the imagery accompanying this bold anti-piracy operation aimed to disorientate and disrupt pirates by making them question their own sanity. Even to this day, some believe the campaign caused cognitive disruption and was responsible for inexplicable amnesia among pirates.<\/p>\n

While everyone remembers the images, it\u2019s perhaps telling that nobody can recall anything about the operation or its damaging effect on The Pirate Bay.<\/p>\n

Yet, here we are a decade-and-a-half later, potentially witnessing something even bigger. A pair of genuine copyright complaints, sent by Web Sheriff to Cloudflare last week, are certainly disorientating. The fact that they caused Cloudflare to do something it rarely does, raises even more questions.<\/p>\n

SmashyStream and Movielair Violated All the Laws<\/h2>\n

The notices sent to Cloudflare targeting SmashyStream and Movielair claim to protect the rights of EDGLRD, which according to the blurb on its website \u201cis a new IP-based studio working with a network of leading artists, musicians & film directors.\u201d<\/p>\n

EDGLRD released a movie last September about an assassin on a mission to kill a demonic crime lord. It\u2019s called Aggro Dr1ft, it co-stars Travis Scott, and was shot entirely in infrared. The trailer is headache inducing; yet somehow not as visually and mentally concussive as the takedown notices sent to Cloudflare.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

An artist\u2019s impression of the \u00a9 copyrighted \u00a9 copyright notices sent to Cloudflare<\/em>\"web-sheriff<\/a><\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

The takedown notices cannot be described as DMCA takedown notices due to their format. However, they\u2019re pretty much identical and right off the bat deliver a powerful statement. For the reasons directly underneath, that doesn\u2019t hinder reporting.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2024 WEB SHERIFF\u00ae This Notice is the Copyright of WEB SHERIFF\u00ae<\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n

(Criticism \"✔\" Commentary \"✔\" News Reporting \"✔\" Public Interest \"✔\" Non-Fiction Work \"✔\" \u0500\u0250\u0279op\u028e \"✔\")<\/em><\/small><\/center><\/p>\n

The nature of the take down notices requires direct quotation here to avoid misrepresentation. They amount to a sm\u00f6rg\u00e5sbord of allegations made under the legal system of an unidentified country and read as follows:<\/p>\n

\n

\u2022 Infringed \/ Violated Rights : A. COPYRIGHT, B. PERFORMERS\u2019 RIGHTS, C. MORAL RIGHTS, D. RIGHTS-OF-PUBLICITY, E. CONSUMER PROTECTION RIGHTS<\/em><\/small>
\n\u2022 Infringing \/ Violating Materials : PIRATED COPYRIGHT MOTION PICTURE(S) AND \/ OR TELEVISION PRODUCTION(S) AND \/ OR OTHER AUDIO-VISUAL RECORDING(S) \u2013 \u2018AGGRO DR1FT\u2019<\/em><\/small>
\n\u2022 COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT (UNAUTHORIZED EXPLOITATION & DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION OF COPYRIGHT MATERIALS)<\/em><\/small>
\n\u2022 PERFORMERS\u2019 RIGHTS INFRINGEMENT (UNAUTHORIZED EXPLOITATION & DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION OF COPYRIGHT MATERIALS EMBODYING RECORDED PERFORMANCES \/ PERFORMERS\u2019 RIGHTS)<\/em><\/small>
\n\u2022 MORAL RIGHTS INFRINGEMENT (UNAUTHORIZED EXPLOITATION & DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION OF COPYRIGHT MATERIALS EMBODYING MORAL RIGHTS)<\/em><\/small>
\n\u2022 RIGHTS-OF-PUBLICITY INFRINGEMENT (UNAUTHORIZED EXPLOITATION & DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION OF COPYRIGHT MATERIALS IN CONJUNCTION WITH NAME AND \/ OR LIKENESS)<\/em><\/small>
\n\u2022 CONSUMER PROTECTION RIGHTS VIOLATIONS (THROUGH MISLEADING & DECEPTIVE TRADE PRACTICES AND \/ OR FALSE ENDORSEMENTS & BOGUS AFFILIATIONS)<\/em><\/small>
\n\u2022 BREACH OF ISP\u2019S PUBLISHED TERMS OF SERVICE \/ ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (BY REASON OF THE ABOVE INFRINGEMENTS & VIOLATIONS)<\/em><\/small>
\n\u2022 BREACH OF SITE\u2019S PUBLISHED TERMS OF SERVICE \/ ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (BY REASON OF THE ABOVE INFRINGEMENTS & VIOLATIONS)<\/em><\/small>
\n** TRADEMARK & GENERAL RESERVATION OF RIGHTS ** ALL REGISTERED, COMMON-LAW & PENDING TRADEMARK RIGHTS ARE HEREBY STRICTLY RESERVED (AS APPLICABLE) AND AS ARE ALL OTHER RIGHTS OF AN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY NATURE (WHETHER EXPOUNDED HEREIN OR OTHERWISE).<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Given that a notice in this format makes no attempt to comply with the requirements of the DMCA, some companies in the U.S. might choose to reject it. Nevertheless, it\u2019s still made clear in the notices that access to infringing content needs to be prevented. <\/p>\n

On that basis there\u2019s no real reason not to take action and on that front, Cloudflare seems to agree.<\/p>\n

Cloudflare Blocks Access to Movie \u2018For Legal Reasons\u2019<\/h2>\n

The \u2018Error HTTP 451\u2019 status code was approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) back in 2015 as a more informative alternative to the \u2018403 Forbidden\u2019 code utilized by some ISPs engaged in blocking. <\/p>\n

While still relatively rare, it has appeared more frequently of late when users outside the bloc attempt to access content subject to the EU\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).<\/p>\n

On rare occasions, \u2018Error HTTP 451\u2019 has been observed when pirate sites are subjected to blocking orders. In 2020, Cloudflare began showing the code when DDL-Music was blocked<\/a> under the orders of a German court.<\/p>\n

As the images below show, the takedown notices on the left, sent by Web Sheriff to Cloudflare last week, now lead to the Error HTTP 451 status codes on the right.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Smashystream \u2013 Unavailable for legal reasons<\/em>\"sheriff-smashystream-1\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Movielair \u2013 Unavailable for legal reasons<\/em>\"\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Both error pages link to copies of the takedown notices listed on the Lumen Database (1<\/a>, 2<\/a>). That\u2019s useful since they explain what prompted Cloudflare to implement blocking.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s So Special About These Notices?<\/h2>\n

As noted earlier, Error HTTP 451 status messages are a relative rarity for piracy-related content. What is even more unusual here, at least as far as we can determine, is that they relate to the specific URLs mentioned in the Web Sheriff takedown notices. Most if not all URLs on both sites appear to be available as normal.<\/p>\n

The big question is why Cloudflare has responded in this way to a Web Sheriff complaint alleging violations of seemingly all IP-related laws in existence today, while (at least as far as we can determine) refusing to offer a similar service to the world\u2019s largest movie studios?<\/p>\n

At least in theory, how and where the websites are hosted could play a part (Cloudflare does block permanently hosted content following valid copyright complaints). At least one of the sites above uses infrastructure and\/or content hosted in Malaysia, but that\u2019s nothing out of the ordinary in itself, so other factors could be at play. <\/p>\n

That seems to lead to an uncomfortable conclusion. While the combined might of the Web Sheriff and The Village People proved laughably ineffective against The Pirate Bay, a barrage of legal allegations \u2013 fired from a comically broad blunderbuss \u2013 appears to have prompted rarely-seen pinpoint blocking by Cloudflare.<\/p>\n

People laughed at Web Sheriff\u2019s earlier antics; they might not be laughing now.<\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retelling a few funny stories about the early antics of Web Sheriff might be quite fun. At least until the realization that was around sixteen years ago when the internet wasn\u2019t facing a serious threat of censorship and regulation. So much has changed since then it would be difficult to recapture the essence of those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77937,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}