In my experience Cloudflare goes too far with offering their security services to everyone.
There is a website that's constantly ripping and stealing artistic content from a community I used to be part of. They have an automated process for ripping and reuploading content not meant to be downloadable from small independent artists in this community without informing the artist, obtaining permission or anything. Outragingly, when content is marked as "private", they upload it anyway but charge "credits" for users to "purchase" the download for the stolen private content. This website is clearly not existing in good faith, even has the word "rip" in its domain name, and they ignore most takedown requests.
Their website and any information about their true host is protected by Cloudflare. Over the course of a year I have sent several abuse reports about this website to Cloudflare and have never heard back. They seem to absolve themselves of any responsibility by saying they just forward reports and leave it up to the host or the website owner(???) to take action. In this case, the owner and the host already know they're stealing content so they just ignore the reports.
Due to the fractured nature of the community, no single artist so far has had the time or money to take legal action or even the knowledge of who to take legal action against (the owners are anonymous), so it appears the website will continue existing, proudly protected by Cloudflare.
You're 100%, undoubtedly, focusing your anger at the wrong party. Taking CF out of the equation of your problem won't fix the problem. It won't take the site down. It won't stop their behavior.
What I think is happening: you've exhausted several paths of recourse; the no-name website operators aren't responding; the fly-by-night hosting provider in eastern europe says they won't do anything; but you hit a stroke of luck. In some small, insignificant way, in a tracert or a dig to the perpetrators site, an American Big Tech company popped up. Finally; a name I recognize; someone may listen. Anger is given focus.
CF could act. It wouldn't change anything. Not for the site; not for the artists you support; not for you. I don't know what the right course of action to fix your problem is; I don't have any experience in that domain. I hope you find it, because that situation does suck. But I do know: you can blame CF today, maybe they act, and tomorrow it'll be someone else. You'll be stuck on that treadmill forever.
> Over the course of a year I have sent several abuse reports about this website to Cloudflare and have never heard back.
why would you send abuse reports to cloudflare about a website that hosts copyrighted material? why not send the reports to the website itself? and if that website ignores them then there are other ways to get that content offline, no?
This is not a Cloudflare problem. The copyright holders should follow the procedure in the DMCA to protect their content. If they're not willing to spend the time to do so then what can they expect? No one else is going to do their job for them.
And by time, you really mean money. Because if you send a DMCA notice and the hosting company ignores you, the next step is court. Can they afford to get justice? How much does it cost for an indie artist to take a fairly anonymous website host to court? How do you serve a company that's anonymous thanks to Cloudflare?
File suit against John Does 1 through x. Then during the discovery phase, ask the court to compel Cloudflare to reveal everything they know about the alleged infringers. Amend the suit accordingly.
This can cost an indie artist as much of as little as they want, depending on whether they hire counsel or act pro se.
I think I know what site this person is talking about, and I can say that the legal system is typically out of reach for a lot of people creating the art that's stolen. It takes a lot of money to bring a lawsuit against someone, and it might not even go anywhere.
There is a website that's constantly ripping and stealing artistic content from a community I used to be part of. They have an automated process for ripping and reuploading content not meant to be downloadable from small independent artists in this community without informing the artist, obtaining permission or anything. Outragingly, when content is marked as "private", they upload it anyway but charge "credits" for users to "purchase" the download for the stolen private content. This website is clearly not existing in good faith, even has the word "rip" in its domain name, and they ignore most takedown requests.
Their website and any information about their true host is protected by Cloudflare. Over the course of a year I have sent several abuse reports about this website to Cloudflare and have never heard back. They seem to absolve themselves of any responsibility by saying they just forward reports and leave it up to the host or the website owner(???) to take action. In this case, the owner and the host already know they're stealing content so they just ignore the reports.
Due to the fractured nature of the community, no single artist so far has had the time or money to take legal action or even the knowledge of who to take legal action against (the owners are anonymous), so it appears the website will continue existing, proudly protected by Cloudflare.