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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.
"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.
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?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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.
"His name was James Damore."
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/
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...
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.
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.
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.
... 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.
This sig left unintentionally blank.
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.
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.
That require the ISP to expend its resources to deliver.
We are not your personal army.
-- Cox Communications
Have gnu, will travel.
May they all lose.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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.
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.
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)
No sig today...
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.
(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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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.