Cox Stands Pat, Won't Spy On Customers To Appease Copyright Holders (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: Cox Communications is standing up for its subscribers by so far refusing to spy on their online activities and take legal action against those who download copyrighted material. That stand has already cost the ISP $25 million (the amount a Virginia federal jury recently came up with when it ruled that Cox was responsible for the activities of those using its service), and it could cost Cox even more. The ruling against Cox took place last December. Since then, music publisher BMG has followed up by asking a court to issue a permanent injunction against Cox. BMG also wants the ISP to boot customers who have pirated content and share the details of those subscribers with copyright holders. The topic of deep packet inspection has also come up. Despite all this, Cox is holding firm in its position. "To the extent the injunction requires either termination or surveillance, it imposes undue hardships on Cox, both because the order is vague and because it imposes disproportionate, intrusive, and punitive measures against households and businesses with no due process," Cox stated in its reply.

Comments

Can we donate?

[spiritplumber]

Seriously, they should do a gofundme.

Re:Can we donate?

[meta-monkey]

As a Cox customer, this makes me happy to give them my subscription dollars.

I don't think that's a phrase I ever thought I'd say: "I'm happy to give a telecom my money."

Still, I always use a VPN anyway.

Re:Can we donate?

[suutar]

That's the only argument Cox has standing to make - they have to show that _they_ are being harmed; otherwise their opinion is legally irrelevant.

Re:Can we donate?

[Grishnakh]

This seems like a bit of a stretch. I wouldn't call it "corporate greed" when a corporation is asked to fuck over their customers, and refuses because it's going to cost them both money and customers.

Pick your favorite for-profit company, one that no one really thinks of as "greedy", perhaps some nice local restaurant, or a doctor's office or veterinarian. Now, imagine that company is asked to spend a ton of money installing equipment spying on all their customers, blatantly violating their privacy (this is really bad in the doctor's office case, and violates HIPAA), and turning this information over to some other party so the customers can be sued for some baseless BS such as defamation or something (because the customers bashed some political candidate while chatting in the waiting room maybe, or in the exam room while waiting for the doctor).

Is the doctor's office "greedy" because they refuse to implement this, on their own dime no less?

Really, when any company is asked to aid and abet in fucking over their customer, how is it "not noble" when that company flatly refuses? It doesn't make them a saint, but I don't see how you can fault them for it one bit. What kind of idiot would want to fuck over his own customers? It only makes rational sense for a company to refuse.

Unintended Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

The federal court ruling sets a dangerous precedent. Now if an ISP fails to stop the distribution of illegal materials such as (think of the children) pornography either served to a minor or of an exploited minor, the ISP can be sued by the parents of said children. Cox Communications should take this case all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Re: Unintended Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing this is a lot of MPAA doing judge shopping. Cox's hq is Atlanta, so why is this lawsuit in VA with the one judge who is exvesssively in the pockets of the mpaa?

Re:Unintended Consequences

[Applehu Akbar]

"Cox Communications should take this case all the way to the US Supreme Court."

Which is now no longer majority controlled by the Oil & Pharma Party, but by appointees of the Hollywood & Lawyer Party. Good luck with that.

Re:Unintended Consequences

[FatdogHaiku]

"Cox Communications should take this case all the way to the US Supreme Court."

Which is now no longer majority controlled by the Oil & Pharma Party, but by appointees of the Hollywood & Lawyer Party. Good luck with that.

That's a pity. An Oil & Pharma Party sounds like more fun than the other one...

Re:Unintended Consequences

[Anubis IV]

Safe harbors are only in effect if the ISPs comply with various terms, which include terminating service for repeat offenders...based on complaints from rights holders that come without any form of due process. Understandably, Cox isn't pleased with that notion, since it means that a private third-party effectively has the ability to force Cox to drop any of its customers, merely by complaining a handful of times.

The problem is that the ISPs don't want to be reclassified under Title II, which would protect them from these sorts of issues, but would also relegate them to being nothing more than dumb pipes. They want to have their cake and eat it too, but that means being open to being sued for not properly policing the content of their pipes.

Re:And they're a cable company?

[DivineKnight]

Perhaps they've reviewed the legal ramifications of losing common carrier status, and have decided, from a fiscal standpoint, that it's their morally corporate duty to maintain such status for as long as reasonably possible.

Re:It's been said before

[GrumpySteen]

Your analogy doesn't work. Deep packet inspection would be like the highway patrol being allowed to pull over every car on the road without a warrant or reasonable suspicion in order to inspect everything in the trunk on the off chance that they might find something illegal.

Re:Comcast in DC

[Anonymous Coward]

Cox customer... I had to set Transmission (my bittorrent app) to use a random port a few months ago because Cox blocked the default port.