These two sites let users convert a music video into mp3 format for free, and are pulling tens of millions of visitors per month. Thus, RIAA is now asking Cloudflare to act on them considering the infringing services, and also obtained a subpoena to reveal details of those sites’ operators.
RIAA Taking Down YouTube Ripping Services
After taking down popular pirate sites, RIAA is now targeting two of the most popular YouTube ripping sites – mp3download(.)to and 320ytmp3(.)com. Both these sites are attracting 3.5 million and 6 million visits per month according to SimilarWeb stats. And in December 2021, January, and February 2022, 320ytmp3(.)com had nearly 60 million visitors per month. Regular visitors are seen coming from the US, UK, Canada, and India. With this unwanted attraction, RIAA is serious about getting this service down. In this pursuit, the organization sent emails to Cloudflare on March 29, stating that “users of its system” are engaged in copyright infringement acts, so asking help for in tracking them down. RIAA specially mentioned mp3download(.)to and 320ytmp3(.)com and tagged reference songs by Wham! and Chicago, among others. Asking Cloudflare to “consider the widespread and repeated infringing nature” of the sites, it filed a DMCA subpoena request at California Court this week, to push Cloudflare into revealing the identifiable details of the above two sites. The request mentioned disclosing personal details like names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, and payment information of the operators. While what information Cloudflare holds in its database is unknown, RIAA may still proceed in taking down the sites in absence of Cloudflare’s help. The organization had won cases of such previously, where the respondents (pirate sites operators) failed to appear, so obtaining a prima facie order to shut them down ultimately.
