CloudFlare Forced To Censor Anti-Censorship Site

[hihello]

A few weeks ago the RIAA obtained a preliminary injunction requiring Cloudflare to terminate services to all domains that use "Grooveshark" in their name. As a result, the popular CDN service was forced to disconnect "groovesharkcensorship.cf," a site specifically set up to protest overbroad censorship. However, the trouble wasn't all for nothing.

Last May, Grooveshark shut down after settling with the RIAA. However, within days a new site was launched aiming to take its place.

The RIAA wasn’t happy with this development and quickly obtained an injunction, preventing various Internet service providers from offering their services to the site.

Through the lawsuit the companies hope to prevent further copyright infringements, but there is more at stake. Much more.

The case is also the first major test of how receptive the courts are to the notion of injunctions against hosting companies, domain name services, ISPs and search engines.

Fearing that these attempts may become commonplace several tech companies protested the injunction, including CloudFlare. The court order requires the CDN-service to ban all domain names that use the term “Grooveshark,” which the company believes is too broad.

This week CloudFlare informed the court that the order limits free-speech, impacting legitimate customers who use it for perfectly legitimate websites.

“CloudFlare has already been compelled by the injunction to deny service to at least one website that is plainly non-infringing, and to others that are arguably non-infringing and have no discernible connection with the Defendants in this case,” they write (pdf).

“This harm to CloudFlare’s business and potentially to customer’s businesses, and to the free speech rights of its customers, will continue without a modification of the Preliminary Injunction.”

As an example, CloudFlare says it had to terminate the account of “groovesharkcensorship.cf,” a site which protested the broad injunction as the screenshot below shows.

Groovesharkcensorship.cf, before CloudFlare took it offline

Under the injunction CloudFlare had no other option than to disable its services for the domain, rendering it inaccessible.

In an email, the company informed the affected user about its actions explaining that it’s not allowed to provide any services that use the Grooveshark trademark in a domain name.

According to CloudFlare many other legitimate sites may be at risk of being censored if the broad injunction is upheld.

Despite these protests, the record labels maintain the position that the measures are “entirely appropriate.” They argue that it’s up to CloudFlare to determine whether a domain name is infringing, and consult the record labels if there’s any doubt.

For its part, CloudFlare wants the court to modify the injunction so that they only have to target domain names which the record labels point out to them, instead of banning the word Grooveshark altogether.

Shortly before publishing this article the court ruled (pdf) on the dispute, largely in favor of CloudFlare.

In a ruling issued a few hours ago District Court Judge Alison Nathan clarifies that CloudFlare is no longer required to ban all Grooveshark-related domains. Instead, the record labels must alert the company to possibly infringing sites.

However, Judge Nathan adds that if CloudFlare has knowledge of an infringing domain name it is required to take action on its own.

So, in the end it appears that the censored anti-censorship site has served its purpose. At the time of writing it still remains offline, but this may change during the coming hours.

Source:TorrentFreak

[Sylence]

This is really funny. Those in charge are shaping the Freedom however they want. Google chrome blocks access to Popular torrent websites like Rarbg, Torrentz, Kickass etc and now CLoudflare. what's next? Freedom is a funny word to throw on these actions. End-users must be aware of these and don't think only because their chrome browser marks a website as malicious it is really malicious.
The group they are targeting are Unaware End-users otherwise people like those on this website have enough knowledge to know the differences. :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

[steven36]

Most sites removed cloudflare in the last few weeks anyways most were just using it for DDOS protection not to hide there server they didnt start using it tell DDOS got so bad..

Any government agency can easily get you're sites real Ip using Cloudflare without asking

This explains how How Not To Use CloudFlare

http://kalypto.org/research/how-not-to-use-cloudflare/

Also if someone ask them for it they give it to just about any Copyright troll . If anyone knew the facts about the service they only would be using it for DDOS protection its not good anything else .

[Sylence]

Most sites removed cloudflare in the last few weeks anyways most were just using it for DDOS protection not to hide there server they didnt start using it tell DDOS got so bad..

Any government agency can easily get you're sites real Ip using Cloudflare without asking

This explains how How Not To Use CloudFlare

http://kalypto.org/research/how-not-to-use-cloudflare/

Also if someone ask them for it they give it to just about any Copyright troll . If anyone knew the facts about the service they only would be using it for DDOS protection its not good anything else .

That's good, the web hosting providers must provide them with some anti DDOS measures to help them mitigate such attacks. most people use CF for its CDN feature.

govenment agencies aren't the only people who can do that, with this website anyone can do that

[steven36]

Most sites removed cloudflare in the last few weeks anyways most were just using it for DDOS protection not to hide there server they didnt start using it tell DDOS got so bad..

Any government agency can easily get you're sites real Ip using Cloudflare without asking

This explains how How Not To Use CloudFlare

http://kalypto.org/research/how-not-to-use-cloudflare/

Also if someone ask them for it they give it to just about any Copyright troll . If anyone knew the facts about the service they only would be using it for DDOS protection its not good anything else .

That's good, the web hosting providers must provide them with some anti DDOS measures to help them mitigate such attacks. most people use CF for its CDN feature.

govenment agencies aren't the only people who can do that, with this website anyone can do that

Yes thats why some blogs who were using CloudFlare for DDOS protection still kept getting knocked offline anyways because anyone with a little work can figure them out.