Cloudflare protects sites: This is essentially the basis of the company’s business model. The Content Delivery Network (CDN) also does this extremely successfully and categorically states that one only protects pages, but is not responsible for what is on them. This makes Cloudflare the target of the copyright lobby time and time again, but the network can usually fend them off.
Now that was the case again, because the operators of the reading app AnyStories have sued Cloudflare. The app’s Singaporean parent company accused the CDN of sharing inaccurate contact information about an alleged pirate site.
The case ended up with the newly established US Copyright Claims Board (CCB), which allows copyright owners to assert claims outside of federal courts – which should relieve them. How TorrentFreak reported, the CCB should arbitrate the cases easier, faster and above all more cheaply, since, among other things, no lawyer is required and the amount of damages is limited to 30,000 dollars.
Most of the cases that end up before the CCB are direct copyright infringements, but now they also had to deal with an allegation against a third-party company. AnyStories, which allows independent authors to earn money by publishing their texts, accused Cloudflare of protecting sites that offer these texts illegally.
Inaccurate information is not a violation
Cloudflare received DMCA complaints from AnyStories, but essentially ignored them because, after all, it’s not a host, so the argument goes. AnyStories was given the contact details for the hoster, which the company should contact. However, AnyStories claims that this information was incorrect and filed a rather vague lawsuit against Cloudflare. But the CCB has now dismissed this case and announced: “Your (…) complaint does not contain sufficient facts about the alleged infringing activity of the defendant, Cloudflare Inc.” The agency continued, “Your claims about Cloudflare do not show how the company committed an infringement. Instead, you appear to describe responses Cloudflare provided to your inquiries about the allegedly infringing website that you found unsatisfactory.”
It was the third and last complaint in this case, AnyStories can no longer call the CCB on this. “Providing false contact information is not an infringing act, and plaintiff has failed to explain how Cloudflare contributed to the alleged infringement here.”
See also:
- Cloudflare protects websites from attacks and is successful at it.
- AnyStories sued Cloudflare for not sharing contact information correctly.
- The case ended up with the Copyright Claims Board, which dismissed the lawsuit.
- AnyStories accuses Cloudflare of protecting sites that offer illegal texts.
- Cloudflare argues that it is not responsible for content.
- The CCB found that Cloudflare did not commit any infringing activity.
- AnyStories can no longer bring the case before the CCB.
CloudFlare, Cloudflare Inc
