For those unaware, a subpoena is a request for the production of documents, or a request to appear in court or other legal proceedings. It is a court-ordered command that basically requires you to do something, such as testify or present information that may help support the facts that are at issue in a pending case. The group of movies companies that includes Bodyguard Productions, Cobbler Nevada, Criminal Productions, Dallas Buyers Club, and Venice PI recently filed a subpoena through a federal court in Hawaii. Cloudflare is one of the leading CDN and DDoS protection services, which is used by millions of websites across the world, of which some are infamous pirate sites. However, instead of taking a strong stand against piracy, Cloudflare maintains its position as a neutral service provider. This means that those copyright holders who want Cloudflare to act against the piracy sites need to follow the legal process. In this case, it means obtaining a subpoena, commanding the company to share the personal information of its customers. The above movie studios are involved in a series of piracy lawsuits especially the best-known “copyright trolling” cases against alleged BitTorrent pirates. While the documents of the subpoena were not posted publicly, TorrentFreak managed to obtain a copy, which shows that the movie companies want information of the operators behind Showboxbuzz.com, Showbox.software, Rawapk.com, Popcorn-time.to, Popcorntime.sh, YTS.ag, and YTS.gg. On the other hand, Cloudflare has not filed any motion to quash the subpoena, which means that the service provider may likely hand over the requested details. However, the subpoena itself doesn’t disclose anything about the intentions of the movie companies. While the original lawsuit doesn’t list the above-mentioned sites, it’s likely the owners are suspected of being linked to the defendants. Regardless, it is clear that the movie outfits are looking at the information as a possible valuable evidence in their legal battle. However, the question remains how helpful would the data obtained from Cloudflare be to the copyright holders, as in most cases, operators of pirate sites and services ensure their best to shield the identity of the true operators from being exposed. Source: TorrentFreak Also Read- Developer of Terrarium TV says he could hand over user info to authorities
