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Music Publishers Sue Cox Communications Over Piracy
wabrandsma (2551008) writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica:
BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music have sued Cox Communications for copyright infringement, arguing that the Internet service provider doesn't do enough to punish those who download music illegally.
Both BMG and Round Hill are clients of Rightscorp, a copyright enforcement agent whose business is based on threatening ISPs with a high-stakes lawsuit if they don't forward settlement notices to users that Rightscorp believes are "repeat infringers" of copyright. In their complaint (PDF), the music publishers also decided to publicly post IP addresses.
ISPs are required under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") to implement and maintain a policy that provides for the termination of subscribers and account holders that are repeat copyright infnngers in order to maintain the safe harbor protection afforded by the DMCA from copyright infringement claims that the ISPs otherwise would enjoy.
This is just plain false. The DMCA contains no language calling for ISPs to "terminate" their subscribers over copyright claims. It's a lie.
Perhaps that's why Rightscorp is going bankrupt. Judges don't like to be lied to. A good defense attorney (and my guess is they have one) will tear that to shreds.
They also say, in point 4:
Despite these notices and its actual knowledge of repeat infringements...
How do they know Cox "has actual knowledge"? Because they notified Cox? That's not "actual knowledge", that's just an allegation. A very different thing.
All in all, I think I see why Rightscorp and its clients have not been very successful at these suits. Hell, *I* could probably rip them to shreds in court... if it weren't for the fact that IANAL and so I don't know proper court procedure.
So if someone is found guilty of copyright infringement twice Cox may need to terminate their account.
Who's been found guilty so far?