A Florida federal court has denied Cloudflare's request to vacate a recent order which opened the door to widespread site blocking efforts. The order, obtained by the RIAA, applies to the defunct website MP3Skull but could have broader consequences.

Representing various major record labels, the RIAA filed a lawsuit against pirate site MP3Skull three years ago.

With millions of visitors per month the MP3 download site had been one of the prime sources of pirated music for a long time.

In 2016, the record labels won their case against the MP3 download portal but the site initially ignored the court order and continued to operate. This prompted the RIAA to go after third-party services including Cloudflare, demanding that they block associated domain names.

Cloudflare objected and argued that the DMCA shielded the company from the broad blocking requirements. However, the court ruled that the DMCA doesn’t apply in this case, opening the door to widespread anti-piracy filtering.

The court stressed that, before issuing an injunction against Cloudflare, it still had to be determined whether the CDN provider is “in active concert or participation” with the pirate site. However, this has yet to happen. Since MP3Skull has ceased its operations the RIAA has shown little interest in pursuing the matter any further.

While there is no longer an immediate site blocking threat, it makes it easier for rightsholders to request similar blocking requests in the future. Cloudflare, therefore, asked the court to throw the order out, arguing that since MP3Skull is no longer available the issue is moot.

This week, US District Court Judge Marcia Cooke denied that request.

Denied



This is, of course, music to the ears of the RIAA and its members.

The RIAA wants to keep the door open for similar blocking requests in the future. This potential liability for pirates sites is the main reason why the CDN provider asked the court to vacate the order, the RIAA said previously.

While the order remains in place, Judge Cooke suggests that both parties are working on some kind of compromise or clarification and gave two weeks to draft this into a new proposal.

“The parties may draft and submit a joint proposed order addressing the issues raised at the hearing on or before April 10, 2018,” Judge Cooke writes.