Cloudflare Doesn't Have To Cut Off Copyright-Infringing Websites, Judge Rules (arstechnica.com) 21
An anonymous reader writes: Cloudflare is not liable for the copyright infringement of websites that use its content-delivery and security services, a federal judge ruled yesterday. Cloudflare was sued in November 2018 by Mon Cheri Bridals and Maggie Sottero Designs, two wedding dress manufacturers and sellers that alleged Cloudflare was guilty of contributory copyright infringement because it didn't terminate services for websites that infringed on the dressmakers' copyrighted designs. The companies sought a jury trial, but Judge Vince Chhabria yesterday granted Cloudflare's motion for summary judgment in a ruling (PDF) in US District Court for the Northern District of California. Chhabria noted that the dressmakers have been harmed "by the proliferation of counterfeit retailers that sell knock-off dresses using the plaintiffs' copyrighted images," and that they have "gone after the infringers in a range of actions, but to no avail -- every time a website is successfully shut down, a new one takes its place." [...] While the ruling resolves the lawsuit's central question in Cloudflare's favor, the judge scheduled a case management conference for October 27 "to discuss what's left of the case."
A defendant is liable for contributory copyright infringement if it has knowledge of another's infringement and materially contributes to or induces that infringement, the judge noted in his ruling against the dressmakers. "Simply providing services to a copyright infringer does not qualify as a 'material contribution,'" he wrote. "Rather, liability in the Internet context follows where a party 'facilitate[s] access' to infringing websites in such a way that 'significantly magnif[ies]' the underlying infringement." Although a defendant can be found to materially contribute to copyright infringement if it acts as "an essential step in the infringement process," this should not be interpreted too broadly, the judge wrote. "As the Ninth Circuit has recognized, the language used in these tests is 'quite broad' and could encompass much innocuous activity if considered out of context. An analysis of contributory copyright infringement must therefore be cognizant of the facts in the key cases in which liability has been found," Chhabria wrote.
Mon Cheri Bridals and Maggie Sottero Designs alleged that Cloudflare contributes to copyright infringement by providing performance-improvement services, including its content-distribution network and caching capabilities that improve the quality of webpages and make them load faster, Chhabria wrote. But the "plaintiffs have not presented evidence from which a jury could conclude that Cloudflare's performance-improvement services materially contribute to copyright infringement. The plaintiffs' only evidence of the effects of these services is promotional material from Cloudflare's website touting the benefits of its services. These general statements do not speak to the effects of Cloudflare on the direct infringement at issue here." The plaintiffs did not prove that the faster website-load times enabled by Cloudflare "would be likely to lead to significantly more infringement." Additionally, Cloudflare removing infringing material from its cache would not prevent users from seeing the copyrighted images. "[R]emoving material from a cache without removing it from the hosting server would not prevent the direct infringement from occurring," Chhabria wrote.
A defendant is liable for contributory copyright infringement if it has knowledge of another's infringement and materially contributes to or induces that infringement, the judge noted in his ruling against the dressmakers. "Simply providing services to a copyright infringer does not qualify as a 'material contribution,'" he wrote. "Rather, liability in the Internet context follows where a party 'facilitate[s] access' to infringing websites in such a way that 'significantly magnif[ies]' the underlying infringement." Although a defendant can be found to materially contribute to copyright infringement if it acts as "an essential step in the infringement process," this should not be interpreted too broadly, the judge wrote. "As the Ninth Circuit has recognized, the language used in these tests is 'quite broad' and could encompass much innocuous activity if considered out of context. An analysis of contributory copyright infringement must therefore be cognizant of the facts in the key cases in which liability has been found," Chhabria wrote.
Mon Cheri Bridals and Maggie Sottero Designs alleged that Cloudflare contributes to copyright infringement by providing performance-improvement services, including its content-distribution network and caching capabilities that improve the quality of webpages and make them load faster, Chhabria wrote. But the "plaintiffs have not presented evidence from which a jury could conclude that Cloudflare's performance-improvement services materially contribute to copyright infringement. The plaintiffs' only evidence of the effects of these services is promotional material from Cloudflare's website touting the benefits of its services. These general statements do not speak to the effects of Cloudflare on the direct infringement at issue here." The plaintiffs did not prove that the faster website-load times enabled by Cloudflare "would be likely to lead to significantly more infringement." Additionally, Cloudflare removing infringing material from its cache would not prevent users from seeing the copyrighted images. "[R]emoving material from a cache without removing it from the hosting server would not prevent the direct infringement from occurring," Chhabria wrote.
cloudfare is is service, like the internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Go after the crooks, not the services.
Re:cloudfare is is service, like the internet (Score:4, Insightful)
Car collection info is not to find crooks specifically. They are used to decide to when to employ safety measures. Anti lock brakes, deploy the air bag, etc.
Data used after an accident is not preemptive crook surveillance. Gas stations not selling *some* stuff is not looking for crooks.
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A central part of the DMCA is section 512 (i), Conditions for Eligibility, which requires a provider to have "adopted and reasonably implemented" a policy to handle repeat copyright infringers, up to disabling their accounts. So the law requires companies like Cloudflare to help enforce copyright law.
What's not clear here is how Cloudflare handled the infringers here. Were they identifiable as repeat infringers? If so, did Cloudflare apply their repeat infringer policy?
Re: cloudfare is is service, like the internet (Score:2)
I get the whole not everyone should be liable for infringement argument, but at a certain point, if your network is being used to transit nefarious purposes, it does seem like you should
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That's a specific limit to liability that would apply if the judge had ruled the other way.
They don't need to use that limit, because the judge ruled they're not contributing to infringement in the first place.
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If the latter does not exist, then the former becomes irrelevant.
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which requires a provider to have "adopted and reasonably implemented" a policy to handle repeat copyright infringers, up to disabling their accounts
Accepting the word of often inaccurate automated scanning bots owned or paid for by the opposing party with a vested interest in maximizing claims as proof for who is and is not an infringer is total bullshit. Especially when there's no penalty for false notices.
So when an actual court or lawful neutral authority repeatedly finds a party to be guilty of infringement, then we can talk about strikes to a repeat infringer policy.
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No service provider needs the DMCA to remove people we disagree with.
We reserve the right to refuse you service for a litany of reasons, and as long as they're not specifically protected, we run a zero percent chance of running afoul of any civil rights law.
Your disgusting political affiliation is one such unprotected class.
Now some real talk.
Even though we may find your views fucking abhorrent, that's not why we would cancel your ass.
We cancel your ass because you advo
Re: wow (Score:2)
No, because that has nothing to do with this case. It neither involves a caching service nor copyright infringement.
First line in the article is wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Cloudflare is not liable for the copyright infringement of websites that use its content-delivery and security services, a federal judge ruled yesterday
No, that's not what the judge ruled. The judge ruled that in this one particular case, Cloudflare was not responsible for "contributory" copyright infringement. That's because in this particular case, the website could not have used Cloudflare, and the copyright situation would have been unchanged.
If you had a website where improving the performance through Cloudflare is essential, this could be very much different. If you create an illegal video download site, that would be dragged to its knees if it didn't use Cloudflare, that could very well be different.