Record Labels File 'Billion Dollar' Piracy Lawsuit Against ISP Cox (torrentfreak.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: This week Cox's problems doubled after a group of high profile record labels filed a new piracy liability lawsuit against the Internet provider. Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Universal Music, Warner Bros Records, and several others accuse the company of turning a blind eye to pirating subscribers. The labels argue that Cox has knowingly contributed to the piracy activities of its subscribers and that it substantially profited from this activity. All at the expense of the record labels and other rightsholders. "Indeed, for years, Cox deliberately refused to take reasonable measures to curb its customers from using its Internet services to infringe on others' copyrights -- even once Cox became aware of particular customers engaging in specific, repeated acts of infringement," the complaint reads. To stop the infringing activities, the music companies sent hundreds of thousands of notices to the Internet provider. This didn't help much, they claim, noting that Cox actively limited the number of notices it processed.

"Rather than working with Plaintiffs to curb this massive infringement, Cox unilaterally imposed an arbitrary cap on the number of infringement notices it would accept from copyright holders, thereby willfully blinding itself to any of its subscribers' infringements that exceeded its 'cap.'" Cox has previously stressed that it implemented a "thirteen-strike policy" to deal with the issue. According to the record labels, it is clear that Cox intentionally ignored these repeated copyright infringements. As such, they believe that the ISP is liable for both contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. As compensation for the claimed losses, the companies demand statutory or actual damages, as well as coverage for their attorney fees and other costs. Since the complaint lists over 10,000 musical works, and there's a statutory maximum of $150,000 per work, the case could in theory cost Cox more than $1.5 billion.

Comments

They should sue

[Anonymous Coward]

They should sue the road owners for helping piracy

Re:They should sue

[bobstreo]

They should sue the road owners for helping piracy

You mean the electrical companies for providing electrons.

Their lawyers must have forgotten the concept of safe harbor as part of the DCMA act/

Re:They should sue

[jonsmirl]

I'll fully support their actions when we go back to a 20 year copyright instead of the ridiculous 140 years under the current system. It is obscene that photos and recordings of WWII won't be freely available until generations that haven't even been born yet are adults.

Re:They should sue

[Anonymous Coward]

But, but we have to keep the copyright up to protect the photos and recordings from the Nazis!

Re:They should sue

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that WWII was a public domain work, nobody should be without murder and destruction as the public pays for it.

Re:They should sue

[Opportunist]

Just to give anyone who doesn't know an idea HOW insane copyright actually is: The copyright for Mein Kampf expired in 2016.

Re:They should sue

[Joce640k]

I'll fully support their actions when we go back to a 20 year copyright instead of the ridiculous 140 years under the current system. It is obscene that photos and recordings of WWII won't be freely available until generations that haven't even been born yet are adults.

LOL! In 20 years they're going to extend it all over again. God forbid that Steamboat Willie should ever enter the public domain.

(or maybe what we really need is for copyright owners to pay to extend protection beyond a certain time, eg. if Disney wants perpetual copyrights on its stuff then they should pay a yearly fee for it. Any stuff that isn't making a useful amount money will then enter the public domain automatically)

Re:They should sue

[jonsmirl]

Free for 20 years and then requiring a renewal fee would solve 90% of the copyright's problems. The fee bit is critical since it achieves two purposes, it solves the orphan work problem and it removes copyright protection from all of the non economically viable works. Plus it creates a database of exactly what is under copyright. I'm fine with 20 year renewal periods, but it would be for an escalating fee on each renewal. This model allows extremely costly works like big budget movies to maintain copyright indefinitely while simultaneously pushing all of the minor items that make up our culture into the public domain.

Re:They should sue

[drinkypoo]

(or maybe what we really need is for copyright owners to pay to extend protection beyond a certain time, eg. if Disney wants perpetual copyrights on its stuff then they should pay a yearly fee for it. Any stuff that isn't making a useful amount money will then enter the public domain automatically)

After 5 years, require that it be submitted to the LoC for archival. After 10 years, start charging fees which double every year... Structure the initial fee such that it becomes expensive around year 25.

Re: They should sue

[saloomy]

The problem is that it generates revenue to extend copyrights. You make more money if people have to pay money for them, and you know how much you will make roughly since the prior years give you a sense of popularity. So, you use some of those funds to lobby Congress to give you more years of revenue generation.

On the other side, limiting the copyright saves you money, but no one actually realizes how much they save because the work was in the public domain. They don't "feel the savings". So they don't feel incentivized to pay to lobby Congress to limit copyright.

This is the case of "the squeaky wheel gets the oil".

Re:They should sue

[Anonymous Coward]

Better: Make it percentage-based on revenue, not 'profits' because Hollywood already showed how they like to abuse that.

Re: They should sue

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet there are no former DJs who also made mashups and mixes in the Congress. The creative industry is naturally ambivalent about the subject, while the small actors probably still don't have a voice or an organization to speak up for them.

Re:They should sue

[dryeo]

But then you'd have a growing public domain competing with copyrighted works, which is not in the interests of the publishers, who feel that they have a right to collect rent on works forever without competition.

Re: They should sue

[saloomy]

Yes. That's the problem. The gains are concentrated in the large media companies, who have the incentive and the means to enforce their copyright. The losses are dispersed across 330 million consumers and a millions of small artists who aren't incentivized enough to push back.

Re:They should sue

[Anonymous Coward]

(or maybe what we really need is <insert dumb idea here>)

I call it a dumb idea because you already called it: "In 20 years they're going to extend it all over again." You're under some delusion if you think that if we could only provide some sort of "better" way then things would actually be carried out differently. Nothing you suggest is "better" for the copyright holders or Congress to act differently. There is simply no motivation to look for a "better" way or to consider "compromise". So much bad faith has been exercised, the most rational argument is to call for the elimination of copyright. Only then might we as a people consider hearing copyright holders offer a compromise of 14 years (+ an optional 14 year extension). And we might just reject it for no copyright.

Re:They should sue

[Shikaku]

1% tax per year on profit if you want to keep the copyright. Copyright solves itself and revenue can still be gained if you're really desperate enough.

Nice twist.

[JaredOfEuropa]

How do ISPs "contribute" to piracy, and by that I mean that they do something that aids or enables piracy specifically, instead of just providing a conduit to anything and anyone? By the same token: how have ISPs profited from piracy specifically... do they charge extra for Torrent traffic or something? That is not at all the same thing as "refusing to take measures", the latter should only be actionable if the ISPs are actually responsible for curtailing piracy. Or are the cops now going to send my speeding tickets to the authority responsible for our highways as well, because they "refuse to take measures" to make me slow down?

Re:Nice twist.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where Net Neutrality was a benefit to them.

If they treated all traffic the same and didn't interfere or "shape traffic", they would have no liability to shape traffic in a way that limited piracy. What ISPs did, was show that they could shape traffic based on origin and were willing to do it when it benefited them but were not willing to limit the illegal activities of their subscribers.

Re:Nice twist.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing that obligates them in any way to do anything about piracy that goes over their services is the DMCA. The DMCA requires a site to maintain a reasonable policy regarding repeat offenders. If a member violates the policy, their account must be terminated. I have long argued that the "reasonable policy" that should be implemented is that if a subscriber is taken to court and the courts have found that repeat infringement is going on, then and ONLY then should the "repeat infringement" subscriber's account be terminated. After all, a DMCA takedown notice is only an allegation of guilt and anyone can file one without any risk of legal repercussions (the only penalty in the DMCA is for people knowingly falsely claiming to hold the copyright and no one has ever been prosecuted for that as far as I am aware.) A few unproven allegations (DMCA takedown notices) can get your internet connection permanently terminated; that sounds quite unreasonable.

So, the only good answer that will greatly infuriate these copyright organizations while cleanly absolving the ISPs of any guilt for their users' actions is to rely on the judgment of the courts to legally determine "repeat infringer" status and terminate the account. This also seems to be the most fair way to handle it. It protects against loss of internet connectivity based solely on unproven allegations and defers the legal fact-finding to the courts that hold the power to make those judgments. I don't know why the ISPs aren't doing this already.

Posted as AC so the RIAA/MPAA won't know who is fucking up their program.

Re: Nice twist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently providing an internet connect in any form violates RIAA/MPAA copyrights somehow

Re:Nice twist.

[Applehu Akbar]

Just this once, I hope the record companies win every penny. This will be an object lesson to ISPs in why they should lobby for common carrier status.

Re: Nice twist.

[Your_spleen]

I agree. Automotive manufactures, by the same token, should be held liable for drunk driving, drive by shootings and other crimes facilitated by the road paved by the auto industry. And what about gun manufactures? What actions have they taken to mitigate the crimes committed with their products? Clearly, manufactures and distributers should be at fault for what individual consumers do. [/End sarcasm].

Re: Nice twist.

[mrbester]

No one has mentioned the water companies, who have been complicit by allowing pirates to fill a kettle whenever they want. If these pirates weren't able to hydrate themselves the record companies wouldn't have "lost" millions of dollars. Someone should do something!

They've made a good start in Flint. Not much piracy from there...

Re:Nice twist.

[Kjella]

How do ISPs "contribute" to piracy, and by that I mean that they do something that aids or enables piracy specifically, instead of just providing a conduit to anything and anyone?

Go back and read the Betamax case and how it was a close 5-4 call that VCRs remained legal and that the majority opinion was initially the dissenting one. The law and courts have always struggled with products and services that are used to facilitate crime, because naturally it would be quite profitable if you could stay on the legal side and rent it out to crime while claiming ignorance. Think ships for piracy on the high seas, distilleries during prohibition, selling lock picks, date rape drugs, large amounts of cough medicine, whatever. It's the same shithole civil forfeiture laws came from too, the property was involved in crime so let's take it even though we can't prove the owner was involved.

That is not at all the same thing as "refusing to take measures", the latter should only be actionable if the ISPs are actually responsible for curtailing piracy.

In some cases due to an insane amount of scrutiny they've made quite specific laws on what's necessary, for example I think gun shops are regulated so that if they've done the necessary background checks and whatever it doesn't matter what the statistic is on how they're used or how many other "suspect" circumstances there were they can't be held liable. The DMCA was this sort of a compromise, an ISP is by default not liable for what people do online unless you've been notified and then there were various rules for take downs, counter-notifications etc. but they mostly applied to hosting and search engines. What should an ISP do? Well:

(i) Conditions for Eligibility.
(1) Accommodation of technology. The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider
(A) has adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network who are repeat infringers; and

So what's a "reasonable" system, "provides for" termination, "appropriate circumstances" and "repeat infringers"? I mean any ToS says they may kick you out if you break the law, but it doesn't say they have to. And it doesn't define repeat infringers, like is an uncontested notice equal to an admission of guilt because some random guy from the peanut gallery sent your ISP an accusation? It doesn't say. And it's never been properly settled in court. My thought is that this will probably go all the way to the Supreme Court because it's just terribly written law.

Re:Nice twist.

[kobaz]

Aaahahahaha, that's classic in its own right.

ISPs are lobbying for deregulation so they can do whatever the fsck they want and so now they should be directly responsible for everything they do as a result since they refuse to be classified as common carriers.

Re:Nice twist.

[Rick Schumann]

They don't 'contribute' to piracy. But they don't 'contribute' to being policemen for the Intellectual Property owners, either, and since the IP owners are finally discovering the hard way what a senseless game of whack-a-mole it is to try to stop it from happening, they're now trying to force ISPs to participate. Of course that won't work either, it'll just make everything more expensive for everyone and accomplish nothing.

Re:Nice twist.

[pots]

You're not thinking big enough. With enough of our lawmakers in their pockets, there's no reason why they can't have their cake and eat it too.

Re: Nice twist.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, your ISP wants to BE the record compan.

Re: Nice twist.

[Highdude702]

Plenty of drugs however!

Re:Nice twist.

[rtb61]

It's like you are not paying attention to debt. No matter what they fuck they do, no matter how hard they try, no matter how they corrupt law, there is simply no money out in the market to spend more on content consumption. So pure exercise in futility, there has to be money out there, there simply is not, that stone has been squeezed dry but insatiable greed is insatiable greed. Even though logically they know there is no money out there left to take most of it is already owed in one way or another, they still have delusional dreams about being trillionaire Gods of capitalism, seriously, I am not kidding about that God of capitalism thing, really locked into their empty psychopathic heads.

You moron content producers want more money, you need to have more money available in the market. So consider all other sources of consumer debt a competitor, so what can be targeted to create more free income. Well obviously two things stand out, medicare for all, if they are spending only a fraction on a medicare tax compared to private health insurance, that leaves a chunk of money to spend on content, so from a content creators point of view, private for profit health insurance should be considered the fucking enemy because for you profits it most definitely is. Next, the minimum wage, the more you push it up, the more they have to spend, obviously.

So from a content creators point of view, taking from the rich (the minority and there is only so much content they can buy and they pay the poor man's price for it) and giving to the poor ( a whole lot more of them can afford to buy more content and low and behold they pay the same price as the rich, just many, many, many more of them), makes a whole lot more sense than wasting money on completely pointless and futile actions (your scummy lawyers have scammed you).

So content distributors want more money, take from the other rich fuckers, give it to the poor and the less poor will spend it on content. Only so much to go around and the well has been drained dry, want more fill it with other fuckers money, you need more money at the bottom if you want a chance at getting it.

Re:Nice twist.

[pots]

there is simply no money out in the market to spend more on content consumption

This isn't true at all. We've seen a pretty massive increase in spending on content in the last ~15 years, a good portion of that driven by new revenue streams. The video games market has roughly doubled in that time, for example, driven in significant part by unregulated gambling (loot boxes).

Your suggestion that only rich people are actually spending on those loot boxes is untrue, it's well established that poorer people are more vulnerable to gambling addiction. Wales are pretty evenly spread across the socio-economic spectrum.

I don't see what any of this has to do with corrupt politicians though.

Re:Nice twist.

[Anonymous Coward]

> 1) they can do whatever the fsck they want
> 2) now they should be directly responsible for everything they do

Obvious solution for ISP would be to have both tools in their arsenal and they can change their status on a whim, depending on which status gives the best result. I.e. when they want to do all the crap, they would reject common carrier status. But when they're being sued for being responsible for the crap, they can rely on common carririer status.

Dear Cox

[Rockoon]

Dear To Whom It May Concern,

We would like you to spend your profits to help our efforts. Its the moral thing to do. See you in court.

Re:Dear Cox

[phantomfive]

"His name was James Damore."

Are you starting a fight club? I mean, you can't talk about it, but are you saying that........"In death we have a name"?

Re:Nice twist - common carrier status lost

[dyfet]

I think this touches upon common carrier status. Clearly if they have a right to throttle and selectively manage who people can communicate with by becoming a "selective" conduit, a right they have demanded in rejecting net neutrality, they are asserting they have both that right and also the explicit legal responsibility/liabilities for all traffic that does pass thru their network. Clearly the sharks are circling...

Countersuit

[orlanz]

I hope Cox counter sues for all the money they take from their customers and shareholders to protect the music industry's decrepit business model.

The cost of processing those requests, the monies wasted with erroneous requests, and the cost of defending their policies.

Re:Countersuit

[Greyfox]

Yeah. The engineering effort of supporting DRM that has already been broken by some wiseass kid in Sweden is astronomical. Among other things, it makes automated testing of all the different ways video can be delivered incredibly difficult. This has an impact on customer satisfaction when bugs slip through the build process, on development costs of those delivery methods themselves and in the requirement to hire more manual testers in order to verify that mobile devices and set top boxes work at all before they're shipped out the door.

And that doesn't even begin to cover consumer frustration when none of their AV equipment works with any of their other AV equipment. Or when a customer has to maintain a relationship with 5 different media delivery companies in order to access all the content they've purchased.

I could make a pretty good argument that the AA's have cost the legitimate content delivery industry billions of dollars. Their rabid defense of profits has the opposite effect that the various IP laws have been set up to encourage -- stifling innovation and creativity of content producers and delivery companies. Not that anything can really be done about it until the the public is willing to have what is really a pretty boring discussion about the sad state of IP law and how it should be fixed.

Besides, don't they already have a law that says they don't need to police their own user base as long as they take down content when notified about it?

Re:Countersuit

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia our courts agree that the claimed copyright holder must pay/compensate the ISP's for actions.There was friction because media companies wanted to pay nothing.
Not sure of the eventual outcome.

It is noted that dreams of blackmail, income related settlements and deception were also quashed - to just fair and actual damages. According to the amount of TAX music companies actually pay, that would be very small indeed - with retail price at the top end.

One also notes some of these tracking schemes often involve illegality and entrapment, and fraudulent accusations.

I though ISP was like a phone company, and not responsible for what people discussed over the phone, or fined gazillions for allowing nude selfies to fly about. Make it a regulated service provider RSV, then someone gotta pay for that regulation on a cost recovery basis.
Trump does not like regulation taxes.

Re: Countersuit

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont understand why anybody does anything legally in the US. whats the point of trying not to be a criminal when everything is a crime?

Re:Countersuit

[Anonymous Coward]

there's a reason why they chose cox to pick on instead of at&t, verizon, charter, or comcast -- and it's not because of any shortcomings in how they deal with aup/tos violations.

it's specifically because they're a privately held company, where one family owns like 99% of it. it's a pretty big company, but any financial hit that the company might take will be directly felt by only a few people.

they will cave, they will settle. no way this gets dragged-out in court with a potential 'billion dollar' judgement.

Re: Countersuit

[Alypius]

Americans are said to commit three felonies a day. Not terribly far from the NKVD's claim to Stalin, "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime."

This could be interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently current law _may not_ ( what I mean is : it may OR it may not, and it is not clear which interpretation would be chosen by a court ) protect an ISP from being liable for the behavior of its users as the law did when the ISP had common carrier status. If the music industry has paid off the right judge, this mess could end up in the US Supreme Court, where hopefully the music industry will be slapped hard and sent home with a stern warning not to try this shit again.

It seems absurd to hold an ISP responsible for the behavior of users. It is not reasonable to expect an ISP to be able to control the behavior of users. I expect any judge who is not corrupt to agree with this position. However, I know that many judges are not free from corruption and that the US legal system often reaches decisions which have little or nothing to do with what an ordinary person would call "justice".

Perhaps an attorney who has training in the pertinent areas of law will comment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier#Telecommunications

Re:This could be interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems absurd to hold an ISP responsible for the behavior of users. It is not reasonable to expect an ISP to be able to control the behavior of users.

Which wholly explains why ISPs haven't been fighting against Net Neutrality nor trying to throttle competitor services to get users behavior to favor their own services. Oh, right. They made their bed; they should lie in it.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

I want what the record labels and MPAA are smoking!

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

They smoke C(rap).

ISP's are not responsible

[Anonymous Coward]

ISP's are not responsible for anything their clients do.
They are a service provider. They have to provide a service without prejudice.

They don't have to monitor what the end users are doing. that would in fact be an invasion of privacy and probably be a human rights violation.

This is akin to blaming power companies for terrorism, as they used someones power while scheming their evil schemes.

   

Re:ISP's are not responsible

[Anonymous Coward]

So then using the same stupid idea:
The towns, city, states and country should be responsible for any crime that occured by anyone that used roads or walkways as transport to and from crime area.
Because no one stopped them from using the road or walkways.
Such BS.l

Here is the solution

[gerald.edward.butler]

Take all the music executives out back and cave their skull in with a sledgehammer. Problem solved. I'm tired of hearing about this shit. I don't care about their shitty-ass "Music" they produce anyways. I don't download. Couldn't care less about it. If they produce something of true value, people would buy it. What they produce is shit-drivel.

Re:Here is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that they produce anything themselves other than contracts and loans that the real creators are tricked into signing then go bankrupt trying to pay back. All while the music labels make billions.

Re:Here is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the solution is to... stop buying, pirate everything, wait until **AA goes bye bye, stop pirating, buy from artists you like, the rest have jobs waiting at McDonald's. Seems so simple.

Re:Here is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not simple because it's a classical collective action problem. These problems need massive campaigning, creating trends, nudging, etc., and even with all that they might not be solved. To give another example, practically every urban zone could be turned into a gigantic public mesh network if all users would install some (already existing) software on their routers. The net benefit would be huge. This will never happen for the same reason, though, the benefit is only created if nearly everybody does it at the same time.

Re:Here is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the solution is to... stop buying, don't pirate everything of theirs, wait until **AA goes bye bye, buy from artists you like, the rest have jobs waiting at McDonald's. Seems so simple.

FTFY..

Re:Here is the solution

[Type44Q]

ake all the music executives out back and cave their skull in with a sledgehammer.

"Confucious say hollow head cave like eggshell - unsatisfying - but explode in microwave like Gremlin in sunlight."

Re:Here is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

3edgy5me

Surely...

[YuppieScum]

... this is "alleged infringement" until such time it has been investigated and been proven.

Last time I checked, the "presumption of innocence" was still a corner-stone of the rule of law for most - nominally civilised - countries.

Re: Surely...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha ha haha ha hahahahaha *wipes tears* hahaha ha haha ha ha....ha

Re:Surely...

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps this was true pre trump

Re:Surely...

[whoever57]

Last time I checked, the "presumption of innocence" was still a corner-stone of the rule of law for most - nominally civilised - countries.

... that only applies to criminal law. This is civil. There is usually no presumption of anything on either side.

DMCA provides safe harbor...

[KJ Hrim]

So, they love the DMCA (I believe that's part of this filing...). but, they hate the DMCA because "pass through" or "facilitators" are enabling theft. What most people don't realize is that for the past couple years all ISP's have been pushing IPv6 to the home. The addresses are static, and unless you are taking fairly drastic measures broadband users are not anonymous. With static IP addressing, I'm not sure what this complaint is about.

Re:DMCA provides safe harbor...

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with Ipv4 or IPv6. An ISP must keep a log of their carrier grade NAT anyway, a date, time ip4v address and port number they know who the subscriber was who send or received certain packets.

Re:DMCA provides safe harbor...

[Rockoon]

They have no duty to go through their logs and take action against one of their customers at the request of corporations in hollywood and memphis, nor a duty to provide those logs to corporations in hollywood and memphis, nor a duty to protect corporations in hollywood and memphis.

Re:DMCA provides safe harbor...

[squiggleslash]

ISPs haven't exactly been pushing IPv6, more tolerating its existence. Home router manufacturers generally don't enable it by default. Some operating system use the IPv6 "privacy extensions" which essentially grab a new IPv6 address for each outgoing connection, rather than linking your address to your MAC or DHCPv6 allocated address. Which incidentally is a horrible idea.

I would suggest to you the vast majority of downloads come from regular old IPv4 addresses.

I'd also suggest it doesn't really matter. Most of the time a single family will be using an IPv4 address, the "shared house full of people sharing one connection" and "oops I accidentally opened my Wifi" things are by far the minority of situations.

Re: Nice twist - common carrier status lost

[reanjr]

Firstly, having a right to select which traffic goes through the network does not limit your common carrier status. Only acting on that right limits your common carrier status. Secondly, traffic shaping is not even close to what they are talking about with common carrier status; they are talking about censorship and controlling messaging.

Re:Nice twist - common carrier status lost

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just thinking, "if only they were a common carrier. Then they wouldn't be responsible for the content of the identical packets they route on a neutral network"
Oh well.

automated complaints

[Revek]

That require the ISP to expend its resources to deliver.

A few words that could, you know, change things

[Provocateur]

"as we know it" e.g. There has been no scientific proof that the red planet could have sustained life as we know it eons ago

"in theory" e.g. the case could in theory cost Cox more than $1.5 billion

"will not run for President"

clearly what they want is...

[Anonymous Coward]

... to suck Cox dry

Re: clearly what they want is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this is proof positive that all the record labels are a bunch of greedy immoral fornifuckating faggots.

Dear Record Labels,

[PPH]

We are not your personal army.

-- Cox Communications

Re:Dear Record Labels,

[Anonymous Coward]

We've already got a personal army. They're called lobbyists.

-- MAFIAA

I'm not sure they'd care

[rsilvergun]

if the end result is they turn the internet into a high priced television service where they get a cut of every single purchase that happens then they'll consider it a win. It's not like when the record labels sued folks for sharing MP3s. Cox can defend itself. The companies will settle out court, and killing NN will still be a win for them. After all, if you're pirating music you're not paying for it and there's no opportunity for Cox to charge a 30% premium for delivering it.

Re:I'm not sure they'd care

[Highdude702]

whether i had 10gbit internet or dialup, i would still pirate music and the such. NN was a shitty rule.

Easy workaround.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. TermÃnate account per DMCA.

2. Immediately activate a NEW account for subscriber, and transfer info over.

See, everyone wins.

Record Labels vs Cable Carriers

[phantomfive]

May they all lose.

Re: Nice twist - common carrier status lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, having a right to select which traffic goes through the network does not limit your common carrier status. Only acting on that right limits your common carrier status. Secondly, traffic shaping is not even close to what they are talking about with common carrier status; they are talking about censorship and controlling messaging.

None of that is the case any longer.

It used to be true, as that was the case back in the 90's when the FCC classified companies as telecommunication carriers, which are the same laws that provided for common carrier classification as well.

All of the laws that let the FCC make such classifications were very recently repealed earlier this year, so no longer apply.

With the massive FUD campaign intentionally confusing what laws existed and what laws would disappear, I can understand the reason you would be unaware of this.
There were thousands of people paid to spread FUD, and millions more that were willing to do so for free.
They would say laws allowing classification as a telecom aren't needed to classify something as a telecom, yet there is now no such classification to apply or not apply. They also intentionally mislead people about how old the laws were, typically claiming "those laws dated in the 90s were only just made in 2015" when that was proven false before and after.

So no, COX and all other ISPs in the USA are not telecommunication providers under the law anymore, and there is no such thing as common carrier to fall under or to not fall under, it simply doesn't exist as a concept in law anymore.

So it doesn't at all matter what COX situation is, or what their actions are, there is no common carrier status to be assigned or not assigned, thus they are not common carriers.

They are fully and wholly responsible under the law for the actions of all of their customers now.
If the label can prove in court that the customer infringed copyright, that's all that's needed for COX to be found guilty of "secondary infringer of copyright"

There is also "accomplice to copyright infringement" that they are no longer shielded from.
This would require a separate court case against the ISP, but ironically due to the name, does not actually require the accused copyright infringer to be found guilty.
"accomplice" is different from "accessory" in that accessory requires direct action to assist in the crime, or to be physically present (which the latter part I don't believe applies), where accomplice does not require any specific actions to be made to qualify, but the penalties for accomplice are supposed to be FAR lesser.

But since both accomplice and accessory take additional work to prove, while secondary infringer does not, that is what they are going after now.
Secondary infringer can be liable up to the same amount as the primary infringer, and guilt is assumed based off the primary infringer, requiring an appeal case to change.

When it was possible to classify companies as telecommunication carriers, there was additional protections in place for the company to not be automatically liable unless very specific conditions were met. This tended to be quite a high bar so wasn't an option exercised often, and even when it was it didn't succeed often either.

Now that those protections no longer exist things fall back to just what is under title 17 which are far easier to get a successful conviction for.

Cox literally said "F the dmca!!!"

[raymorris]

To qualify for safe harbor under the the DMCA, an isp must implement a reasonable policy regarding repeat offenders. Quoting from the complaint:

--
  Specifically, the Court concluded:
Cox did not implement its repeat infringer policy. Instead, Cox publicly purported to comply with its policy, while privately disparaging and intentionally circumventing the DMCAâ(TM)s requirements. Cox employees followed an unwritten policy put in place by senior members of Coxâ(TM)s buse group by which accounts used to repeatedly infringe copyrights would be nominally terminated, only to be reactivated upon request. Once these accounts were reactivated, customers were given clean slates.

5. The Court further found that starting in September 2012, Cox abandoned its tacit policy of temporarily suspending and reactivating repeat infringersâ(TM) accounts, and instead stopped terminating accounts altogether. Id. at 655-58.
7. The Fourth Circuit affirmed this Courtâ(TM)s holding, explaining that although âoeCox formally adopted a repeat infringer âpolicy,â(TM) . . . both before and after September 2012, [Cox] made every effort to avoid reasonably implementing that policy. Indeed, in carrying out its
thirteen-strike process, Cox very clearly determined not to terminate subscribers who in fact
repeatedly violated the policy.â 881 F.3d at 303. The former head of Coxâ(TM)s Abuse Group,
Jason Zabek, summed up Coxâ(TM)s sentiment toward its DMCA obligations best in an email
exclaiming: âoef the dmca!!!"
--

According to the complaint, Cox chose not to follow the DMCA requirements for safe harbor, and literally wrote "f the dmca!!!"

I'm sure Cox has their side of the story, but they already told the side of the story in court and after hearing thier side the judge already ruled that they did not in fact implement a reasonable policy.

Re:Cox literally said "F the dmca!!!"

[harvey the nerd]

The proper response to a criminal law like DCMA is "FOAD".

Re:Cox literally said "F the dmca!!!"

[BlueStrat]

According to the complaint, Cox chose not to follow the DMCA requirements for safe harbor, and literally wrote "f the dmca!!!"

I'm sure Cox has their side of the story, but they already told the side of the story in court and after hearing thier side the judge already ruled that they did not in fact implement a reasonable policy.

One action Cox could take would be to just say "OK, fine, we'll pay" and just switch it all off and close the doors. Tomorrow. Everything shut off. Wipe all customer account and company data. All the servers, switches, routers, peering points, everything wiped clean (oblig. "like with a cloth?"), and sell all that essential major-capital-investment-level hardware at fire-sale prices. Place the money in an escrow to pay against the "billions" the labels and studios claim they owe. Millions of customers suddenly without internet, not consuming the content cartel's products (or anyone else's like FB, Amazon, etc that sell products and services over the 'net as well), and without even the hardware or personnel left in place for a court to conceivably be able to effectively order service turned back on all because of Congress, the courts, and the RIAA/MPAA.

Let everyone involved experience the consequences of *full* ISP DMCA and "forever minus a day" copyright law compliance.

Sometimes, the most effective strategy is to give your enemy *exactly* what they want in spades.

Strat

Re:Cox literally said "F the dmca!!!"

[sjames]

Of course none of that would have anything to do with the RIAA frivolously filing DMCA complaints for birdsong, personal non-music recordings titled similarly to an RIAA song, brief bits of songe in the background of recordings, and similar ass-hattery.

Re:Cox literally said "F the dmca!!!"

[Anonymous Coward]

They implemented a 1TB cap unless you want to pay $10/50GB over, I'd call that reasonable deterrent for just about anyone to refrain from using their service.

Re:Cox literally said "F the dmca!!!"

[Anonymous Coward]

an isp must implement a reasonable policy regarding repeat offenders

It seems like Cox did implement a reasonable policy regarding repeat offenders. It's unreasonable for the record companies to demand unlimited business resources from Cox to send out as many letters as they would like for as many individual alleged infringements as they want to take issue with. I think that they will have a hard time proving that the policies of Cox are not reasonable as they regard DMCA compliance.

Re:Cox literally said "F the dmca!!!"

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the complaint, Cox chose not to follow the DMCA requirements for safe harbor, and literally wrote "f the dmca!!!"

I'm sure Cox has their side of the story, but they already told the side of the story in court and after hearing thier side the judge already ruled that they did not in fact implement a reasonable policy.

The fundamental problem here comes down to ethical practice of law.

It has been repeatedly shown on this forum that by any reasonable standard, the DMCA violates a number of fundamental rights arising under the Bill of Rights - an open-ended document as a result of the 9th and 10th Amendments - including the right to ethical practice of law. The problems with the DMCA are well established - and since they bring the law into conflict with Bill of Rights - any ETHICAL court would have long since recognized the DMCA as being null and void. The authority of the Bill of Rights supersedes the authority of Congress.

In bringing suit under the DMCA, the lawyers representing the record labels are violating the right to ethical practice of law, since the DMCA itself violates the right to ethical practice of law. Since the right to ethical practice of law arises under the 9th Amendment, it is retained by the people and can not be taken away by ANY court, by definition.

The US legal profession spends enormous amounts of money in the form of bribery that goes by the euphemism "campaign contributions" to encourage politicians to select judges who will not recognize the right to ethical practice of law, or the authority of the Bill of Rights, especially the 9th Amendment. This is why the US legal system is such a disaster - and is also a crippling handicap to the US economy, costing income, costing jobs, causing health problems, and even destroying lives.

Economists estimate that over HALF the income of the US legal profession comes from rent-seeking behaviour and other forms of unethical practice of law (The Captured Economy, Lindsey and Teles). In the insurance world, it is estimated that just the direct expenses alone spent on legal liability in the USA are 2-3x the amounts spent in Europe (Risk Management and Insurance, Rejda). The cost to the US economy - and the income of most Americans - of the indirect effects of the legal ethics problem certainly exceed the direct expenses since they compound with feedback throughout all the logistics chains involved in producing every good or service in the USA. It's not just health care that's being destroyed by the greed of the lawyers, it's everything.

In short, this suit is merely an embodiment of the deeply entrenched corruption in the US law, and the US legal system. People SHOULD be saying "f the dmca" - and they are protected in doing so by the 9th Amendment. Indeed, attempting to penalize somebody for asserting rights under the 9th Amendment is in itself a very serious violation of the right to ethical practice of law, as there can be no rights retained by the people if such rights can not be asserted (a contradiction, and hence unethical practice of law).

The infringement of fundamental rights "under the colour of law" is criminal conduct under US federal law.

What it is going to take to get judges, and other government officials, and third party lawyers to stop engaging in criminal behaviour that is extremely harmful to the US public?

I'm on Cox and I get disconnected.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was too lazy to rip a CD I own (seriously: why would i lie in an anon /. comment?), so I downloaded the torrent - Cox gave me an infringement for each song and disconnected me.

So... the labels are full of shit.

Watch out guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

...we're dealing with a bad ass here.

Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

How about after the record labels pay up what they owe the artists.

Dear Sony et al

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Universal Music, Warner Bros Records and others: you are parasites.

I stopped long ago buying stuff from you. No I don't "pirate" (that's the marketing term you use for "copy stuff you hold copyrights on, in violation of said copyrights") either.

Music? I go to live concerts, mostly by friends and throw money in the hat. I make (the horror!) music myself.

I don't have the feeling I'm missing out anything.

As far as I am concerned, you can go straight out of business. I won't miss you.

Re:ISP's are not responsible - WRONG

[r_naked]

ISP's are not responsible for anything their clients do.
They are a service provider. They have to provide a service without prejudice.

They don't have to monitor what the end users are doing. that would in fact be an invasion of privacy and probably be a human rights violation.

This is akin to blaming power companies for terrorism, as they used someones power while scheming their evil schemes.

 

That WAS the case when they were classified Title II -- common carriers. NOW they most certainly ARE liable, and I hope the RIAA wins every penny, and other ISPs wake up to the fact that they can be sued, and held criminally liable for:

* Allowing child porn (Oh I didn't know -- not an excuse anymore)
* Terrorist forums
* Software piracy
*

The Internet is a public utility that should be classified as Title II. I don't agree with this lawsuit, I think it is a load of horseshit. However, Cox wanted the FCC to revoke Title II, and now I hope they get what is coming to them. Can't have it both ways.

I know!

[slashmydots]

We should sue people who make road because their users do all kinds of illegal stuff on them like transporting illegal goods, drunk driving, etc.

Re: Nice twist - common carrier status lost

[Anonymous Coward]

They are fully and wholly responsible under the law for the actions of all of their customers now.

If two people infringe copyright by exchanging USB keys in a restaurant, then are you saying that the restaurant is a secondary infringer, liable up to the same amount as the primary infringer?

Stupid F****

[Anonymous Coward]

ISP's should band together and block all traffic to Sony for a year and blame it on a misconfigured router.

Sorry, BGP typo... my bad.

Re: Stupid F****

[bn-7bc]

Yea and warch their first kine support toraly melt down whenn all the playstation useres call an complain about psn being down while regoins nott effected bbthe Anti Sony campaign still beeing on line (thinks lke thar spred wuite quicly) or watch sony sue all us isps for sapotaging their buisnss wulh not blcing xbox live etc: watt a mess,. Nha let the courts sort it out rhis was round obe the war us far from over

Perfect example of Network Neutrality

[WoodstockJeff]

In a truly "neutral" network, the contents of the packets does not matter to the carrier. Attempting to force censorship is a violation of that idea.

Re: Nice twist - common carrier status lost

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds good.
and the usb manfacturer
and the chair manufacturer
and the company that made their cloths.
and the company that shipped the usb stick to them.

tis the law. abide. criminals.

Re: Nice twist - common carrier status lost

[nierd]

They are fully and wholly responsible under the law for the actions of all of their customers now.

If two people infringe copyright by exchanging USB keys in a restaurant, then are you saying that the restaurant is a secondary infringer, liable up to the same amount as the primary infringer?

No but if you setup a meeting place where two people could exchange USB keys by giving them to you first, and then handling the swap - yes - you would be.

Re: And that's why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Great firewall of the former united states coming to a state near you.

Re:And that's why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, just what we need. Some weasel determining what neutral protocols can be allowed, and where to/from, for extra brownie points of RIAA buttlickers.

Re:ISP's are not responsible - WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine the encryption people:
Hiding illegal porn
Hiding illegal thought
Hiding piracy

And heaven forbid you use or (especially) write something like Freenet that lets people use a tiny bit of your HDD no questions asked. Have to send you to the star chamber for judgement!

or implement 13 strikes

[raymorris]

Their on-paper policy was "thirteen strikes and you're out", if you have thirteen or more separate complaints filed against you, they were supposed to take action. They decided not to actually do that. Following that policy would have saved their ass. Thirteen strikes seems pretty generous to me.

Re:or implement 13 strikes

[BlueStrat]

Their on-paper policy was "thirteen strikes and you're out", if you have thirteen or more separate complaints filed against you, they were supposed to take action. They decided not to actually do that. Following that policy would have saved their ass. Thirteen strikes seems pretty generous to me.

And the original 13 American colonies could have avoided war by simply obeying all of King Henry's edicts and taxes.

The "Underground Railroad" activists who were caught and hung could have simply obeyed the law against helping escaped slaves flee.

Gun store owners who were prosecuted and imprisoned (and often lynched) for selling firearms to blacks could have simply obeyed the Jim Crow laws.

The courts, even the SCOTUS, are NOT the final arbiters of what is Constitutional and what is not.

We The People are.

Soap, Ballot, Jury, and Ammunition.

Strat

Re:or implement 13 strikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is going to rebel for internet "rights". Nobody. It's a lost battle, no a lost WAR. It's over. The content industry has won long ago. Now you can act like sensible adults and get over it or keep crying and hollering like little children. Your choice. It's not going to change anything anyway. The internet is lost to Big Money. Deal with it.

Re:or implement 13 strikes

[Zontar The Mindless]

And the original 13 American colonies could have avoided war by simply obeying all of King Henry's edicts and taxes.

King Who?

Re:or implement 13 strikes

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is going to rebel for internet "rights".

Well then, it's a good thing these are civil rights and not "internet rights" whatever you think they are.

Re:or implement 13 strikes

[timelorde]

Boon: Forget it, he's rolling.

Bid deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Cox treated the record companies like they were one of Cox' own customers, they were ignored.

They should bring that up in court

[raymorris]

Cox should certainly bring that up in court.

Of course, that was part of the reason for the "thirteen strikes" rule that Cox was supposed to implement, but didn't.

Re:They should bring that up in court

[sjames]

Given the many false accusations, it is also reasonable to argue that a mere accusation is worthless to any policy, particularly when there is no legal consequence at all for a false accusation. Where's the proof, preferably in the form of a finding by a court of law?

Essentially an argument that given the public knowledge that the accusations tend to be based on nothing more than buggy algorithms and scanners that have been publicly documented to not only flag non-infringing content but also to accuse the wrong source IP, the mere receipt of such a report is not actionable. Further that the 13 strikes rule was based on the assumption, now proven false, that the *AA and it's agents would perform some reasonable level of due diligence before sending a complaint.

ahhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we see why net neutrality was repealed. Media companies want to control the internet.

Where's the Musicians App

[Anonymous Coward]

I await the coming App that will unite the Worlds Musicians in a Multi-Trillion Dollar Lawsuit so they can collect the money owed them by the Greedy Record Labels.

Fantastic!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the ISP!!! Maybe we should sue the state if someone is driving drunk...
It's greed!!! I'm not downloading Music or Movies so they decided to go after the next best thing, the ISP...
FACT: Kick the Music industry out of USA!!!

Title 2 common carrier

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, too bad Cox isn't a title 2 common carrier.

Not crying for them at all.

OBAT FOREX

[Produk Herbal Asli]

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ROYAL KIRAZ CANDY

[Produk Herbal Asli]

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So the entertainment industry's ...

[CaptainDork]

... data is getting monetized just like ours is.

We're all getting fucked without even a kiss and there ain't a goddam thing anybody can do about it.

Re:So the entertainment industry's ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought you were a kissless virgin, Chris?

Re: Nice twist - common carrier status lost

[Anonymous Coward]

So depositing a USB key on the sushi train, to be picked up by a friend after a few seconds of travel, would make the sushi restaurant a secondary infringer?

How much?

[NewtonsLaw]

So how much $ does Cox get to cover the costs associated with each copyright complaint from the record labels?

I'm assuming that there *is* a payment, since there is obviously a cost.

Cox should hike the fees associated with processing such complaints by a *significant* amount.

And if the record labels expects Cox to work on their behalf for free, how can they complain when some of Cox's customers expect to get their music for free?

Do these people not know how capitalism works?

Re:And that's why...

[Highdude702]

do you think a torrent doesn't resume when you close the client? a torrent is broken up into a bunch of pieces and you receive small chunks at a time from various sources. it also gets checked to see if anything came corrupt, then re gets it from a different source. it however can saturate links which ISP's hate.

Not three-strikes

[Anonymous Coward]

... refused to take reasonable measures ...

The laws designed to benefit corporations, don't say "When". It's unfortunate that YouTube and Facebook provided automatic de-listing instead of forcing manual-handling or what Cox did. Cox is choosing to not enable (or pay for) the bad behaviour of Sony and friends.

... "thirteen-strike policy" ...

There's a reason it's not called a "three-strike law" and copyright-holders don't get to choose how Cox and other corporations with a contractual duty to customers, handle bad behaviour.

They asked Dr Evil to make the announcement!

[Anonymous Coward]

With his little finger in the corner of his mouth!

"Freedom"

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank Thor I live outside of US of A.

What a joke. Suing providers....