MG Premium, a company operated by adult giant Mindgeek, is attempting to find out who is pirating its Brazzers-branded content. In a DMCA subpoena application filed in Washington, the company wants Cloudflare to reveal who is behind thousands of 'pirate' uploads on YesPornPlease.com - one of the world's largest porn sites - in some cases dating back to 2016.
Mindgeek owns some of the most recognizable porn brands on the Internet, including Montreal-based production company Brazzers.
In common with most content companies, piracy is a problem for Mindgeek and its subsidiary MG Premium Ltd. In August we reported how the company had used DMCA subpoenas in an effort to identify uploaders on many ‘tube’ sites. This month, MG Premium has returned for another bite at the cherry.
In a DMCA subpoena application filed in Washington, MG Premium complains that “Cloudflare’s websites” YesPornPlease.com, Share.io, and a related domain are carrying infringing content to which the company owns the copyrights.
“MG is the owner of numerous copyrighted audiovisual works. In the course of protecting its works, MG has determined that infringing copies of these works, posted at the direction of individual users and without authorization from MG, appear on Cloudflare, Inc.’s websites YesPornPlease.com, share.io, and ezcgwym5xp7ty.com,” the application reads.
“Such infringements have been ongoing and MG has issued DMCA notifications to Cloudflare, Inc.’s DMCA Agent. All notifications have met the requirements of 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A) by setting forth, inter alia, a representative list of the copyrighted works that have been infringed and the identification and location on Cloudflare’s website of the infringing material.
“MG now seeks to obtain a DMCA Subpoena to learn the identity of the individuals who are posting the infringing content,” MG Premium adds.
The suggestion that the sites listed above are Cloudflare’s is obviously contentious. However, there also appears to be a subtle but important error in the application for a subpoena.
While MG Premium is clear in requesting information relating to uploaders on sites including ‘share.io’, that domain appears to have been submitted in error. According to supporting documents, the company should probably be referring to vShare.io instead.
Nevertheless, the application to unmask the uploaders of thousands of pieces of Brazzers content to the sites in question is pretty comprehensive and dates back more than three years.
“For the period January 1, 2016 through the present, produce all documents and account records that identify the person(s) or entities that caused the infringement of the material described in the attached Exhibit B DMCA notifications to the DMCA Agent for Cloudflare, Inc. and/or who unlawfully uploaded MG Premium Ltd’s copyrighted works at the URLS listed in the notifications..,” the application reads.
The information requested includes but is not limited to, names, email addresses, IP addresses, user histories, posting histories, physical addresses and telephone numbers.
As pointed out when a similar application was filed by MG Premium in August, it remains unclear how much information Cloudflare holds on third party sites’ users and whether it’s in a position to hand much over.
The key related documents are available here and here (pdf)
