Cloudflare Transparency Report Reveals Copyright Infringement Reports Doubled in the First Half of 2025, with Responses 50x Increase

Cloudflare has released its Transparency Report for the first half of 2025. The Abuse Handling Report includes statistics on the number of abuse reports received and actions taken by Cloudflare, revealing a sharp increase in the number of copyright infringement-related abuse reports and actions taken compared to the previous period.

Cloudflare Transparency Report | Cloudflare

Cloudflare Reports Surge in Streaming Piracy Takedowns, Removes 20k+ Storage Accounts * TorrentFreak
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Cloudflare claims to power approximately 20% of web services, including sites and services that provide pirated content. While there have been past rulings that Cloudflare does not contribute to copyright infringement sites, in November 2025 the Tokyo District Court ordered Cloudflare to pay a total of 500 million yen in damages for 'facilitating the large-scale distribution of illegal sites' in a lawsuit filed by a group of Japanese manga publishers accusing Cloudflare of 'hosting a pirated manga site.' Cloudflare has strongly opposed this ruling, raising the issue of the liability of content delivery network operators.

Cloudflare strongly opposes ruling that holds it responsible for pirated content - GIGAZINE

Cloudflare's semi-annual transparency report details how Cloudflare, as a content delivery network operator, responds to abuse reports, how its response differs across different service types, and what its statistics for the first half of 2025 look like.

First, Cloudflare has identified three principles that guide its abuse handling. The first is 'service-specific,' which means that abuse responses are tailored to the nature of the service and the response to the damage, minimizing the possibility of unintended consequences. The second is 'access to abuse reports,' which means that a process is established for complainants to file complaints with a party that can appropriately handle them. The third is 'transparency,' which means that Cloudflare believes in being transparent about its abuse handling practices.

According to statistics from the Transparency Report, Cloudflare received 124,872 hosting-related copyright infringement complaints in the first half of 2025. Other complaints included 4,861 trademark infringement complaints, 137 child sexual abuse content (CSAM), 49 non-consensual sexually explicit images (NCSEI), 156 bomb threats, and 131,405 phishing-related complaints.

Of the reports received, Cloudflare took action, such as disabling or removing content, in 54,357 of 124,872 cases of copyright infringement, 1,316 of 4,861 cases of trademark infringement, 98 of 137 cases of CSAM, 15 of 49 cases of NCSEI, 6 of 156 cases of blackmail, and 40,596 of 131,405 cases of phishing scams.

Compared to the second half of 2024, reports related to NCSEI and phishing scams have decreased, while the number of other reports has increased.

The increase in copyright-related cases was particularly significant, with 11,508 in the second half of 2024 and 124,872 in the first half of 2025, more than tenfold. Below is a TorrentFreak summary of the number of copyright infringement reports from Cloudflare's Transparency Reports for the first half of 2023 to the first half of 2025, showing a sharp increase year by year.

The surge in copyright infringement reports is due in part to increased Cloudflare hosting activity, as well as Cloudflare's proactive collaboration with rights holders to combat illegal sports streaming since the first half of 2025. Justin Payne, Cloudflare's Vice President of Trust & Safety, explained, 'This increase is largely due to our advancements in process automation. Specifically, we provided rights holders with access to a dedicated API designed to streamline the copyright infringement claim process, allowing them to automate takedown requests through the API. This has led to an increase in the number of takedowns and a decrease in average response time, which is particularly important when dealing with time-sensitive content such as live sports broadcasts.'

When Cloudflare receives reports of abuse, it removes or restricts access to hosted content, and contacts the hosting provider or responsible party for non-hosted CDN services. Therefore, Cloudflare's response rate may vary depending on the type of service. Cloudflare also notes that even if a report is not counted as a response, it may be in the process of reviewing it, recording it, or preparing for legal action.

In addition, we may take 'geoblocking' measures to prohibit access from certain regions based on legal requirements from governments or courts. As of the first half of 2025, geoblocks cover 33 domains in Italy, 80 domains in Belgium, 13 domains in the UK, and 662 domains in France.