Innovating to address streaming abuse — and our latest transparency report

Cloudflare’s latest transparency report for the first half of 2025 shows a continued focus on addressing streaming abuse and coordinating with rightsholders to identify and act on unauthorized streaming.

The report notes a significant rise in DMCA activity, with approximately 125,000 reports received in the first half of 2025, up from about 11,000 in the second half of 2024, and actions taken on 54,000 of those reports, compared with 1,000 in the previous period, leading to the termination of hosting services for 21,000 accounts. It also highlights that roughly 20% of the web sits behind Cloudflare’s network, underpinning the scale of their abuse mitigation efforts.

The post discusses blocking demands, including multiple European orders to block websites in Belgium, France and Italy, and the UK’s use of court orders to block websites identified as infringing, with blocking implemented via geoblocking and interstitial pages showing a 451 status code. It emphasises a preference for proportionate, targeted measures and collaboration with regulators and rightsholders to prevent illegal content without overblocking.

The article also documents ongoing enhancements to automated abuse systems and tools that help identify streaming abuse and inform technical responses across both hosted and non-hosted services.