Cloudflare Under Pressure to Give Away IDs of 37 Pirate Domain Owners

• Cloudflare is legally compelled to share identification details it holds on 37 domain owners.
• ACE made its move through a DMCA subpoena, but it’s unlikely they’ll get anything useful back.
• The targeted websites are still up and running, but some of them may soon wave the white flag.

The ACE (Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment) keeps on shaking the pirating world, as the blows they deliver come unabiding and without intermissions. In the latest news, the anti-piracy coalition has secured a DMCA subpoena at a California District Court, which goes after the identities of the owners of 37 domains. These are all supported by Cloudflare, so it is the internet company that is compelled to give away whatever they have on the sites.

The list of the websites included in the DMCA subpoena includes the following popular online destinations:

– flixtor.im
– flixtor.is
– flixtor.se
– flixtor.vc
– flixtor.it
– flixtor.to
– myflixer.site
– myflixer.to
– myflixer.com
– xmovies8.pl
– xmovies8.ac
– xmovies8.com
– xmovies8.si
– xmovies8.tv
– watchserieshd.tv
– watchserieshd.cc
– watchserieshd.io
– gowatchseries.movie
– gowatchseries.fm
– gowatchseries.tv
– series.movie
– gowatchseries.video
– 123movies2020.org
– memovies.to
– putlockers.email
– top123movies.com
– putlockers.me
– putlockers.cr
– 0123movies.su
– hdss.to
– moviesjoy.net
– watchseries.movie
– fmovie.sc
– 1movies.is
– soap2day.to
– soap2day.se
– soap2day.im
– huhu.to (through a separate subpoena)

“Legendary” names like Flixtor, HDSS, Soap2day, Myflixer, and Watchserieshd, are included in the list, so this has the potential to affect platforms that are enjoyed by millions of internet users. At the time of writing this piece, Cloudflare hasn’t taken any action against these domains, so they remain online, offering their illicit services as usual.

However, the internet company will have to share subscriber names, IP addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, account updates, account history, and any payment details they have with ACE. This could induce fear to some of these websites’ operators, so a number of them will likely go offline voluntarily. In most cases, though, Cloudflare shouldn’t have anything truthful or even remotely useful to share with the plaintiffs.

For what it’s worth, some of the samples of infringing titles used by ACE are “Beauty and the Beast,” “Last Flag Flying,” “Always Be My Maybe,” “Jumanji: The Next Level,” “Annabelle Comes Home,” “Frozen II,” and “BumbleBee.” Of course, even if the infringing websites were to remove these titles from their databases, ACE would pick other samples. ACE operates on account of a large group of rightsholders, creators, and distributors, so there’s no getting away from its portfolio.

Even if ACE gets nothing real about the operators or owners of these websites from Cloudflare, they are still sending a message to these people. The coalition has essentially endless financial resources to go after sites like Flixtor and Soap2day, so if this attempt to unmask them fails, they will try a different path.