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Insurer Refuses To Cover Cox In Massive Piracy Lawsuit (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader writes with news that Cox Communications' insurer, Lloyds Of London underwriter Beazley, is refusing to cover legal costs and any liabilities from the case brought against it by BMG and Round Hill Music. TorrentFreak reports: "Trouble continues for one of the largest Internet providers in the United States, with a Lloyds underwriter now suing Cox Communications over an insurance dispute. The insurer is refusing to cover legal fees and potential piracy damages in Cox's case against BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music. Following a ruling from a Virginia federal court that Cox is not protected by the safe-harbor provisions of the DMCA, the Internet provider must now deal with another setback. Following a ruling from a Virginia federal court that Cox is not protected by the safe-harbor provisions of the DMCA, the Internet provider must now deal with another setback."
The assertion (by BMG/RHM) is that Cox has not fulfilled the requirements for safe harbor, which include terminating the accounts of repeat offenders. Cox has replied that it takes action on every report of infringement and that in some cases they do wind up terminating access, but BMG/RHM are saying that's not good enough, and a Federal judge has ruled (as I understand it) that the assertion can go to trial, rather than being summarily dismissed as Cox requested.
Which I suspect means that this trial may wind up clarifying exactly what criteria define "repeat offender" for the purposes of the DMCA. Or, more likely, Cox will settle and then get really strict to avoid having to deal with this again.
The assertion (by BMG/RHM) is that Cox has not fulfilled the requirements for safe harbor, which include terminating the accounts of repeat offenders.
Alledged repeat offenders.
How many times a year do we read about big media companies using automated systems that fire off buttloads of false DMCA takedowns?
BMG are not (and should never be) judge,jury and executioner.
FWIW, the previous story made it clear that Cox has called them out on exactly that grounds, as well as a bunch of other claims/country-claims.
One of their main claims is that BMG had spammed them with way too many notices that had lacked proper evidence and such. Cox had notified BMG of that a bunch of times and tried to work with them, and they would not stop sending the automated and often unjustified notices, so Cox stopped listening to any of their reports.
IMO, that's the real story, and makes both sides make more sense. This has almost nothing to do with the end user. Neither Cox nor BMG want to take the time to do the proper paperwork and research to determine if these red flags are detecting actual cases of infringement. BMG is automatically spamming all possible claims; Cox is automatically sending them all to /dev/null; Neither of those are very helpful.
This will likely be settled out of court with some agreement that either BMG will do a little more work, or they'll pay Cox to do it, and then Cox will accept the vast majority of the claims. I'd almost be willing to wager money on that one, if I cared enough to follow this further.
Previous slashdot story: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
Cox's response: http://ia801407.us.archive.org...
Their response is actually kinda fun to read.
FTFA:
The judge understands perfectly well, it is you and many other posters who do not understand. This is happening pretrial. The only things in play now are matters of law.
The DMCA says that if you notify subscribers when you are notified of claimed infringement, and if after repeated notifications you cut them off, then you can not be sued for facilitating infringement. Cox claims they get this protection, but they admit they did not do the above, as you yourself stated. Therefore, as a matter of law, they don't get the protection.
So what does that all mean? Well, first of all it does not mean that the judge is biased or has made an error. It does not mean that the judge has sided with anyone. It does not mean that Cox has lost the case. And it certainly doesn't mean that the judge doesn't understand. What it does mean is that there is an actual dispute as to the facts of the case, and disputes of facts are to resolved by juries, not judges. It very well may be that when a jury hears the case they decide that BMG was in fact unreasonable, and therefore they lose the suit.
The Slashdot headline missed a key detail covered in the article:
Beazley point out that the piracy lawsuit was filed November last year, several days before the December 1, 2014 date the insurance policy began.
It is a bit difficult to file an insurance claim against lawsuit costs when the lawsuit was instigated before the insurance took effect.
Since we love automobile analogies so much: It is like buying car insurance in December to insure against a crash that took place the month before. That's not going to help much.
Or buying a life insurance policy for your recently-deceased relative.
The date insurance coverage began is going to be a far bigger problem than details of what the policy covers.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement