Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
At present, it’s already quite well known that the UK’s major home broadband ISPs (BT, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband, EE, Plusnet, TalkTalk etc.) block customers from accessing websites that have been found, via the High Court, to facilitate internet copyright infringement (piracy). But now Content Delivery Network (CDN) provider Cloudflare has started doing the same.
Just to recap. ISPs subject to blocking orders, which in the UK flow from Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA), have over the past 15 years or so become very common. Hundreds of websites have been blocked through this approach (thousands if you include their many proxies and mirrors), which usually include file sharing (P2P / Torrent), streaming sites, Sci-Hub and those that sell counterfeit goods etc.
Since then, we’ve also seen similar kinds of restrictions being imposed on some third-party Domain Name System (DNS) providers and efforts have also been made to target providers of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) in some countries (here). But now it appears as if Cloudflare has become one of the first internet intermediaries beyond local residential ISPs to also block access to pirate sites in the UK.
According to Torrent Freak, close to 200 pirate domains requested by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) were this week added to one of the longest pirate site blocking lists in the world. But the big change this time is the unexpected involvement of Cloudflare and its geo-blocking system, which for some UK users attempting to access the domains added yesterday, now displays the following notice (status code): “Error 451 – Unavailable for Legal Reasons“.
Extract from Cloudflare’s Error 451 Message
In response to a legal order, Cloudflare has taken steps to limit access to this website through Cloudflare’s pass-through security and CDN services within the United Kingdom.
The move won’t make much of a difference to users of the big ISPs, since they’ll hit the broadband provider’s own network-level blocking before getting as far as the Cloudflare one. But the Cloudflare block will also hit users beyond the biggest broadband ISPs and thus may have a potentially much wider impact. This will also hit some users of VPN providers who may be attempting to circumvent the original ISP-level blocking.
Admittedly, this is still very much a game of whack-a-mole for Rights Holders, and no doubt websites that involve some use of Cloudflare will ultimately end up moving on to harness different platforms. In addition, Cloudflare’s blocking does NOT yet extend to all of the websites that have been previously restricted by UK blocking orders, although it’s perhaps not unreasonable to expect that this will happen in the near future.