You may recall my recent meltdown on copyright infringers and their enablers. Not only did I issue virtual spankings, I actually handed out some backhanded praise to what turns out to be one of the worst offenders! Gasp… CloudFlare!
You see, I found yet another site had pasted the text from my novel directly into 130 of their ad filled webpages. So I did my usual digging and I noticed it was connected to CloudFlare… Hmmmm… Haven’t I heard that name before?
That’s right my loyal Peeps, they’re the same fucking service provider for those other guys.
Sooo… I did some more CloudFlare googling and came across this handy little gem.
“CloudFlare-Watch, a project of Public Information Research, follows in the footsteps of other PIR projects. NameBase has been on the Internet since 1995. Google-Watch began in 2002 when no one else was criticizing Google. Scroogle started in 2005 and lasted until Google began throttling our servers in 2012.
At PIR we believe in privacy for passive users of the web (this is what Scroogle provided). But publishers on the web, as opposed to passive users who merely read pages, should be accountable. All CloudFlare customers are publishers, and many use CloudFlare because it encourages them to hide their original IP address. When they receive abuse complaints, CloudFlare resorts to diversions to pretend that they are acting responsibly — assuming that they respond at all. A refusal to embrace web accountability leads to cybercrime. That’s why we use the term “CrimeFlare” to describe this company.”
Using PIR’s handy little search tool, I decided to see how many similar sites CloudFlare was hosting. My search on freebookol.net returned this result:
norman.ns.cloudflare.com
melinda.ns.cloudflare.com
No direct-connect IP address was found for this domain. Search for these nameservers: melinda norman
Okey dokey….
It turns out CloudFlare is hosting some 30+ domains for those other guys. And guess what?
THEY’RE THE SAME FUCKING GUYS!!!!
melinda norman bestfree-book.net melinda norman bestpackagesclarity.click melinda norman betfutboll.ga melinda norman bijbelvertaling.info melinda norman bstaint.net melinda norman c125.ga melinda norman ceipsi-z.ga melinda norman coocoach.ga melinda norman decorsand.com melinda norman epicapp.it melinda norman f967.ga melinda norman floralsand.com melinda norman fmwalsh.ga melinda norman free-booksonline.com melinda norman freebookol.com melinda norman freebookol.net melinda norman freebooksol.net melinda norman harlequinseries.com melinda norman hnlcd.ga melinda norman hufnagleinsuranceg.ga melinda norman lurazxdick.tk melinda norman maurus.be melinda norman pccmed.ga melinda norman pipizzatruck.ga melinda norman raijdid.ga melinda norman rizausta.ga melinda norman rochman.id melinda norman roinc.ga melinda norman sacrivercowboychurch.com melinda norman sandtastik.com melinda norman sandtastikproducts.com melinda norman sdqyqz.ga melinda norman tbvlugus.nl melinda norman teeni.org melinda norman usasuntek.ga melinda norman wcerc.ga melinda norman xiamenjjw.ga melinda norman yongfassnacht.tk
Okay… Now I’m fucking pissed. Because in my previous post, I was almost actually nice to this dregs.
After some further digging it’s become clear that CloudFlare’s been quietly making a name for itself with the cyber-slugs residing in net’s murkier depths.
Court Orders Cloudflare to Disconnect ‘New’ Grooveshark
“The RIAA has scored an important victory against CloudFlare after the company refused to terminate services to a Grooveshark replacement. District Court Judge Alison Nathan ruled that CloudFlare actively helps the pirate site to spread copyrighted works, and ordered to company to stop doing so…. more on torrentfreak.com…”
CloudFlare argued that they were not “aiding and abetting” because they were not an “active concert or participation.”
Like I said in my earlier rant:
“I know… not your servers. But not being responsible for other people’s shit, doesn’t mean it’s okay to help spread it around.”
And New York Judge Alison Nathan agreed (ain’t she a peach,) asserting since CloudFlare was aware of the infringement, it was knowingly facilitating the infringing douchebags (I’m paraphrasing, she’d probably never use those exact words.) 
So here we are, it’s a year later and CloudFlare’s still at it.
Hey, Judge A, what’s it called when you knowingly transport, transmit, or transfer thousands of dollars of stolen goods across state and international lines? Oh right, a FELONY.
How are CloudFlare’s digital pipes any different than a truck used to transport a shipment of stolen porno mags hijacked on their way to the “Elite Sperm Bank: a cut above blue collar dick?”
In fact, I think they’re worse! While both are being used to transport stolen property across state and international boarders, trucks can only transport a finite amount of jacked shit, the theft potential for digital content is limitless. Because it’s digital, most people don’t consider it real property, although it’s purchase it with real money. And this stolen content is earning these pud-sucking lick-knobs real income.
If only I had the resources that RIAA has…
Wait! Wouldn’t it be great if all the authors and publishers got together and sue the shit out of CloudFlare?
There are hundreds if not thousands of us, and together we are legion. We shouldn’t just sue for our lost revenues either. These are not file swapping sites where people are downloading our content.
THEY’RE READING IT ONLINE! EMBEDDED IN THOUSANDS OF AD FILLED WEBPAGES!
Let’s make knowingly providing services to these types of sites really inconvenient. Let’s go for the whole tamale and go after all the revenues CloudFlare received and all affiliate income our content has generated!
Sorry, I forgot for a moment that I’m just a small time indie writer.
Candace Vianna Writes 
om… Cloudflare is a CDN, not a hosting provider
LikeLike
Om… Doesn’t matter, according to the state of New York, facilitating copyright pirates is illegal. They’re still profiting from it. “District Court Judge Alison Nathan ruled that CloudFlare actively helps the pirate site to spread copyrighted works, and ordered to company to stop doing so.”
LikeLike
CloudFlare-Watch just stopped trimming back their list of CloudFlare domains for which we cannot yet find a probable IP address for the origin server. Now instead of 30+ you will see 66 for freebookol.net. Also, the page at crimeflare.com/repeats.html shows that freebookol.net has 48 listings at Google. Put that domain into the search box on Google’s transparency page and you will see who else has complained about freebookol.net, and has asked Google to remove the listing from search results.
LikeLike
Been there, done that. It’s an ineffective strategy. I can’t hunt down the URLs for every single offending page and submit a complaint to every search engine, that’s literally thousands of complaints. And although Google may stop indexing the individual pages, the content is still on the servers. So when users arrive at the offending site via alternate searches the content is still available.
Since I wrote this post I have discovered my latest novella that I published last month is already being distributed via CloudFlare’s servers (It’s only sold about four copies at 99 cents) The offending site is using an identity guarding service, this is where registering domain service substitutes it’s own contact information so you can’t find out who owns the the site. The only practical way I can think of to curtail this activity is to make all parties accountable for actually enforcing their TOS policies.
LikeLike