In July 2022, IFPI celebrated a temporary injunction by an Italian court against Cloudflare (NYSE: NET), which an industry representative accused of “allowing users to access copyright-infringing websites.” Now IFPI has officially responded to the new decision confirming the injunction.
The London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) recently addressed this latest development in a dispute with San Francisco-headquartered Cloudflare. The latter, as stated by the IFPI last summer, “provided users with access services to three BitTorrent sites that violate copyrights.”
And these alleged copyright-infringing sites, as the IFPI pointed out at the same time, had previously been blocked by the Italian Communications Guarantee Authority (AGCOM), the telecommunications sector regulator. Moreover, IFPI also clarified that the court gave Cloudflare 30 days “to take technical measures to prohibit users from accessing identified sites through the public DNS service.”
“By ordering CloudFlare to stop providing access to these sites, the Milan court has made an important decision that, in our opinion, sends a clear signal to other online intermediaries that they can also be held accountable if their services are used for music piracy.” IFPI head Frances Moore reported about eight months ago.
In November 2022, the Milan court rejected Cloudflare’s appeal against the original decision, and now the court has also rejected “an additional application filed by Cloudflare to clarify the technical implementation of the order,” according to IFPI. Consequently, a publicly traded business should actually stop providing access to the three aforementioned websites, according to the same source.
“The court ruled that CloudFlare’s petition goes beyond the scope of enforcement proceedings, since it addresses issues that have already been considered during the injunction,” IFPI explained this latest court decision. “The court also noted that Cloudflare may block websites through its public DNS service because it takes similar measures, for example, in connection with other illegal or malicious content.”
And in an official statement, the 90-year-old IFPI stressed the “important precedent” that, in his opinion, was created by the decision.
“We welcome today’s decision of the Milan court, which confirmed that CloudFlare is obliged to stop providing access to three copyright infringing sites and any additional “mirror sites” through its public DNS service,” reads the quote published by the IFPI itself. “At the same time, the Milan court has set an important precedent, according to which online intermediaries may be required to take effective measures if their services are used for music piracy.”
IFPI began 2023 touting the “first successful blocking actions targeting” streaming rip platforms in India before announcing (in collaboration with Pro-Música Brasil) the removal of 1,720 copyright-infringing domains and music apps in Brazil. According to IFPI, in 2022, the South American nation ranked ninth in the world in terms of the largest music market.
