Assisting copyright holders
Cloudflare's customers include many large content creators, and we take the challenge of protecting their copyrighted content seriously. Cloudflare’s services help our customers protect their intellectual property against malicious bots and crawlers attempting to scrape or alter the content of their sites, and we can improve the user experience by speeding up websites. We work with rightsholders around the world to identify the ways that we believe we can best assist copyright holders concerned about infringing content on the Internet.
Getting complaints where they belong
Cloudflare’s abuse process is designed to assist copyright holders by making sure their complaints about infringing content get to the parties able to remove that content from the Internet. A sizable portion of the Internet sits behind our pass-through security and performance services, in many cases for free. When rightsholders find infringing content on websites using those services, they sometimes contact Cloudflare because our IP addresses and nameservers appear in the place of the websites’ hosting providers. Although we are unable to remove content from the Internet that we do not host, we are able to connect rightsholders with the website operators and hosting providers who can. We forward copyright complaints to website operators and hosting providers, and give rightsholders the hosting providers’ contact information. While we are not legally obligated to provide that sort of assistance, we think it is the right thing to do and the best way for us to help.
Addressing complaints
Although less common, we also take other steps to address copyright complaints consistent with the frameworks established under United States law (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and European law (the e-Commerce Directive). In the rare instance that we receive a copyright complaint regarding content that we host, we will remove or disable access to that content and follow the procedures set forth in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512(g). You can read more about that process at our Reporting Abuse page. We also clear our cache of allegedly infringing content in response to a valid notification under 17 U.S.C. § 512(b). And, consistent with 17 U.S.C. § 512(i), we have instituted a policy for the termination of services to repeat infringers.
Responding to requests for information
In addition to the information we provide as part of our abuse reporting process, Cloudflare also offers additional resources to help rightsholders investigating possible infringement. We provide information in response to valid subpoenas issued under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512(h). We also have extended our trusted reporter program to certain rightsholder organizations to allow them to get access to sensitive origin IP address information we cannot otherwise make available due to security concerns. More generally, we regularly communicate with such organizations, relevant government entities, and with law enforcement to make sure we identify the best ways that we can help assist rightsholders consistent with the nature of the services that we provide.