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Music Labels Sue Charter, Complain That High Internet Speeds Fuel Piracy (arstechnica.com)
The music industry is suing Charter Communications, claiming that the cable Internet provider profits from music piracy by failing to terminate the accounts of subscribers who illegally download copyrighted songs. The lawsuit also complains that Charter helps its subscribers pirate music by selling packages with higher Internet speeds. Ars Technica reports: While the act of providing higher Internet speeds clearly isn't a violation of any law, ISPs can be held liable for their users' copyright infringement if the ISPs repeatedly fail to disconnect repeat infringers. The top music labelsâ"Sony, Universal, Warner, and their various subsidiariesâ"sued Charter Friday in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado. While Charter has a copyright policy that says repeat copyright infringers may be disconnected, Charter has failed to disconnect those repeat infringers in practice, the complaint said: "Despite these alleged policies, and despite receiving hundreds of thousands of infringement notices from Plaintiffs, as well as thousands of similar notices from other copyright owners, Charter knowingly permitted specifically identified repeat infringers to continue to use its network to infringe. Rather than disconnect the Internet access of blatant repeat infringers to curtail their infringement, Charter knowingly continued to provide these subscribers with the Internet access that enabled them to continue to illegally download or distribute Plaintiffs' copyrighted works unabated. Charter's provision of high-speed Internet service to known infringers materially contributed to these direct infringements."
The complaint accuses Charter of contributory copyright infringement and vicarious copyright infringement. Music labels asked for statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each work infringed or for actual damages including any profit Charter allegedly made from allowing piracy. The complaint focuses on alleged violations between March 24, 2013 and May 17, 2016. During that time, plaintiffs say they sent infringement notices to Charter that "advised Charter of its subscribers' blatant and systematic use of Charter's Internet service to illegally download, copy, and distribute Plaintiffs' copyrighted music through BitTorrent and other online file-sharing services." The music industry's complaint repeatedly focused on BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer networks, saying that "online piracy committed via BitTorrent is stunning in nature, speed, and scope."
The complaint accuses Charter of contributory copyright infringement and vicarious copyright infringement. Music labels asked for statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each work infringed or for actual damages including any profit Charter allegedly made from allowing piracy. The complaint focuses on alleged violations between March 24, 2013 and May 17, 2016. During that time, plaintiffs say they sent infringement notices to Charter that "advised Charter of its subscribers' blatant and systematic use of Charter's Internet service to illegally download, copy, and distribute Plaintiffs' copyrighted music through BitTorrent and other online file-sharing services." The music industry's complaint repeatedly focused on BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer networks, saying that "online piracy committed via BitTorrent is stunning in nature, speed, and scope."
We need to sue music labels for trying to sell annoying thumping noises as "music".
I wonder if the music labels still consider anything over 56k to be "high speed", as any internet connection capable of streaming acceptable video at SDTV resolutions, much less HDTV, makes downloading audio, which is generally about 1% of a video stream, trivial.
Even with just a megabit connection, I could download months worth of audio traffic in a single day.
But then, music labels still haven't figured out:
1. They need to make buying music from them convenient.
2. They can't charge prices higher than video content producers.
It's crazy that buying the soundtrack to a movie often costs more than the movie.
I don't read AC A human right
Regular folks can't even bring a suit against a company like Experian, which they can't even boycott, and who loses their information. Because there's no damage to show. And, somehow these clowns can get this lawsuit off the ground!?
CAPTCHA: defraud
fail to disconnect repeat infringes did a court prove that they are infringes?
The music labels have decided to sue the US postal service for still delivering packages sent by infringers who mailed copied CDs. Music labels say priority mail enablles the CDs to be shared even more rapidly.
Music Labels Sue Charter, Complain That High Internet Speeds Fuel Piracy
Clearly they've never had Charter as a service provider.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
... repeat infringers ...
Why in simple hell didn't they go after those individuals?
ISPs and the Internet infrastructure need to be classified as a utility.
By the music industry's logic, they could also sue electric companies for powering pirate-enabling devices, right?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.