Cloudflare blocks pirate sites in the UK

While in Italy it is trying its best to avoid compliance with the law, in the United Kingdom it has decided to cooperate with the authorities. Cloudflare has implemented a blocking mechanism that prevents users from accessing pirated sites.

VPNs are also useless

In the UK, there is no platform similar to Piracy Shield . Copyright holders seek judicial intervention, which issues blocking orders (injunctions). ISPs must then comply and block access to content streamed via pirate sites . Yesterday, around 200 domains were blocked, but this time Cloudflare is also involved.

The Californian company usually intervenes when requests concern its DNS service (1.1.1.1). Yesterday, it instead used a geo-blocking technique. When the British user accesses the pirate site, they will see a 451 error indicating that the requested resource cannot be provided for legal reasons. The page states:

In response to a legal order, Cloudflare has taken steps to restrict access to this website via its secure pass-through and CDN services in the UK.

Although not clearly stated, these measures involve geographic restrictions . Users have previously used VPNs to circumvent court-ordered ISP blocks. Now, VPNs have become useless. When selecting a server located in the UK, Cloudflare will display the page with error 451.

Cloudflare's collaboration is particularly notable, given its copyright policy:

Because Cloudflare cannot remove content it doesn't host, other service providers are better positioned to address these issues. Among other things, any blocking by Cloudflare has limited effectiveness, as a website will remain accessible even if it stops using Cloudflare's network. Therefore, Cloudflare regularly rejects attempts to obtain blocking orders.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), an association representing several tech companies, including Cloudflare, recently called for the European Commission's intervention because Piracy Shield is illegal. The Commission has requested information from Italy.