MG Premium, a company operated by adult content producer Mindgeek, has filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) subpoena application in Washington which would compel internet infrastructure and security company Cloudflare to unmask the individuals or entities who are allegedly uploading thousands of pirated versions of its Brazzers-branded adult content to one of the world’s biggest porn sites – YesPornPlease.
The DMCA subpoena application claims that YesPornPlease and other sites that it describes as “Cloudflare, Inc’s websites” are carrying content for which MG Premium owns the copyright. It then asks Cloudflare to “identify alleged infringers of MG’s copyrighted material.”
A supporting document provides a list of the allegedly infringing URLs and asks Cloudflare to hand over the following data for those who allegedly uploaded the copyrighted works:
- Names
- Email addresses
- IP addresses
- User histories
- Posting histories
- Physical addresses
- Telephone numbers
It’s unclear how much information Cloudflare holds on third-party sites and whether it can hand over all of the data requested by MG Premium. MG Premium has previously filed several DMCA subpoena applications requesting that Cloudflare identify people who uploaded pirated versions of its adult videos to other porn sites including Waxtube, Vivud, and Veporns and in these instances, it also wasn’t clear whether Cloudflare would be able to provide the data that was being sought.
Historically, Cloudflare has not unmasked pirate websites that use its services and taken the stance that it’s a security company, not a content host which means it doesn’t discriminate against those who use its services.
However, Cloudflare’s termination of service to online imageboard 8chan could be used by companies such as MG Premium to challenge this stance and pressure the company to either unmask those who upload to pirate websites if it has this data or stop providing service to these pirate websites completely.
