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Piracy The Courts The Internet

Cox Appeals $1 Billion Piracy Liability Verdict To 'Save the Internet' (torrentfreak.com) 51

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Late 2019, Internet provider Cox Communications lost its legal battle against a group of major record labels. Now it's appealing it. From a report: Following a two-week trial, a Virginia jury held Cox liable for its pirating subscribers. The ISP failed to disconnect repeat infringers and was ordered to pay $1 billion in damages. Heavily disappointed by the decision, Cox later asked the court to set the jury verdict aside and decide the issue directly. In addition, the company argued that the "shockingly excessive" damages should be lowered. Both requests were denied by the court, which upheld the original damages award.

Despite the setbacks, Cox isn't giving up. The company believes that the district court's ruling isn't just a disaster for Internet providers. If it stands, the verdict will have dramatic consequences for the general public as well. This week the ISP submitted its opening brief at the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, hoping to reverse the lower court's judgment. The filing begins by placing the lawsuit in a historical context. "The music industry is waging war on the internet," Cox's lawyers write. First, the music companies went after thousands of file-sharers and software companies such as Napster. When those tactics didn't deliver the desired result, Internet providers became a target.
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Cox Appeals $1 Billion Piracy Liability Verdict To 'Save the Internet' More

Cox Appeals $1 Billion Piracy Liability Verdict To 'Save the Internet'

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  • We need to support the ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bubblyceiling ( 7940768 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @06:13PM (#61429480)
    This is a dangerous precedent. Soon they will be holding websites liable for user comments.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Gabest ( 852807 )

      I live where this is already true. Comment sections were removed everywhere. Basically no "peer review", news sites can freely spread propaganda.

      • Re:We need to support the ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)

        by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @06:53PM (#61429602)
        Failure to post is not the same blaming ISPs for the actions of their users. We frequently talk about the legitimacy of Section 203 as it applies to social media, but surely the record labels should not be able to pin the liability of the ISPs users on the ISPs themselves. I think we can all agree that is a bad precedent. I also think it is a bad move to allow record labels to force the ISP to disconnect the users. They should have to sue the user in court for remedy. This is akin to suing Ford for making a truck used to transport bootleg DVDs.

        • Re:We need to support the ISPs (Score:4, Insightful)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday May 28, 2021 @04:24AM (#61430598)

          It is a horrible move. The idea of a completely privately run police force enforcing rules outside of the the legal frameworks of our courts has been a wet dream for the MAFIAA for decades.

          To your example though, it's more akin to suing Ford for not tracking the user's use of the truck and failing to stop the truck when it was used for bootleg DVDs. They aren't really going after the provision of service, but rather the fact that the company is unwilling to play private police (actually more like private police, judge, and jury) on the record industry's behalf.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by GrahamJ ( 241784 )

          I think of it as cutting off someone’s phone line because they played music over the phone.

    • Re:We need to support the ISPs (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Xenx ( 2211586 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @06:34PM (#61429542)
      I don't agree with the way the DMCA laws work in terms of handling repeat offenders. ISPs shouldn't be forced to terminate customers based solely upon a claim of guilt. It's fine if the ISPs choose to have their own rules on the matter, but this is required by law. Civil court only requires 51% certainty, and I believe at the bare minimum that should be met before requiring a customer be terminated.

      As for Cox, in this case, that is a tough one. The DMCA rules are quite vague, but also clear in certain aspects. The law requires the company to have a policy in place to terminate repeat offenders. It just doesn't really say much about what that policy should be. Cox's problem is that they had a policy in place, and were actively circumventing it. I don't agree with the law, but Cox very much went against it.
      • Really the record labels should be bringing a court order for disconnect.

        • Re:We need to support the ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)

          by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @06:55PM (#61429612)
          Yup. The law is a bad law because it allows the Record Labels and the ISPs to determine connectivity ex judiciously. Clearly if you accuse someone of breaking the law, they should maintain the right to defend themselves in court, present evidence, refute the accusatory evidence, and face their accuser.
      • âoeCox's problem is that they had a policy in place, and were actively circumventing it. âoe thanks, other providers seem not to have been clobbered on this issue. Cox management underestimated the ferocity of this law. Ouch , amazingly I pity Cox on this one. The damages seem excessive. Though Cox management of the issue and disregard part of it. Wack law, lobby money has its powers.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Xenx ( 2211586 )
          I sympathize with Cox for wanting to keep paying customers. I also don't like the idea of terminating customers over only suspected infringement. The only thing I have against Cox is that they themselves made the policy they were supposed to follow, and then ignored it. As I said, the laws are incredibly vague on what the policy needed to be. They could have developed a policy that was more lax to begin with, and potentially avoided a lot of trouble.

          • The thing is that like Youtube, the internet will be swarmed by 3rd parties who have only the most tenuous claims to keep knocking people offline. Hope you didn't tick off any teenagers lately!

    • Re:We need to support the ISPs (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PPH ( 736903 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @07:00PM (#61429626)

      If you are an ISP, you can't afford to allow any content owned by Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI to travel across your networks. Block it all. Just to be sure.

      • So you want them to do Deep Packet Inspection and forcefully decrypt network traffic to see what is being sent?
        • Hmmm I think they should block all access to Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI's websites and email. Just to be sure! I mean, the majority of leaked music comes from inside the industry after all.

      • If you are an ISP, you can't afford to allow any content owned by Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI to travel across your networks. Block it all. Just to be sure.

        Unfortunately if you're an ISP you're also a monopoly and this act of blocking will violate anti-trust laws. I like your spirit but it's a sure fire way to get your ISP's business killed. Cox already has its hands full appealing one lawsuit from a well funded advisory without having to worry about another.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          Unfortunately if you're an ISP you're also a monopoly

          Not where I like. There's Comcast, Ziply (ex-Frontier) fiber and several cellular data providers. And some of them do block content, including a local newspaper.

          • Not where I like. There's Comcast, Ziply (ex-Frontier) fiber and several cellular data providers. And some of them do block content, including a local newspaper.

            You having some choice doesn't make an ISP any less of a monopoly. They are a textbook definition of one, and as such vindictive blocking will be seen as an antitrust violation. Most likely the local newspaper can't give enough of a shit to take them to court.

    • I wish both sides could lose.

  • I Concur? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NeedMyFix ( 819119 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @06:16PM (#61429488)
    I can't believe I would ever side with a company like Cox but in this case I think I have to agree. I don't want my internet provider watching everything and telling me what I can and can't do. Seems ridiculous to me and will lead to even more censorship and control.

  • stop buying (Score:4, Insightful)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @06:18PM (#61429496)

    I stopped buying recorded music over a decade ago. I only buy movies for the kids. With collective action consumers can change things for the better.

    The statutory damages that these companies can get are ridiculous and excessive.

    • Must be a boring life. Do you also not Stream music (money going to the record industry)? Do you not have Amazon prime (money going to the record industry even without a premium music subscription)? Do you not listen to the radio (money going to the record industry)?

      The idea that users can vote with their wallets in this case only really works if you live in an off the grid bomb shelter in Utah and refuse to turn on the radio.

      The problem here is that these companies insert themselves into the financial stre

      • You always seem to come at people with ad-hominem attacks, its really not necessary.

        All you have to do here is look at where the RIAA revenue comes from, and they tell you here:
        https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales... [riaa.com]

        The RIAA sees the most revenue from 'Paid Subscriptions' - $7B in 2020 or 57% of all revenue. I don't have any of those paid subscriptions. And I don't use most of RIAA's other revenue streams either (LPs, CDs, Album Downloads, Song Downloads, etc).

        Any ad supported streaming I might do contributes to

  • Good luck, Cox (Score:5, Insightful)

    by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @06:25PM (#61429514)

    Even the worst ISP is worth supporting against the Copyright Robber Barons.

  • Demand common carrier!

  • I agree with them on this one.

  • This makes no sense whatsoever. This is the equivalent of Honda being held liable because someone transported a car load of pirated DVDs to a friend's house.

    • Its like them suing Honda because they couldn't read your license plate accurately enough.

    • Re:So Honda is liable if I transport pirated DVDs? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sleeping Kirby ( 919817 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @10:24PM (#61430054)
      Honestly, if the software/movie/music industry gets their way, yeah, they would like that to be the case. Disney use to sue people for distributing studio ghibli movies when they were shelving them in the US (in the 90's.). This was common knowledge in animation industry. They were suing people to prevent them from getting something they could sell. Movies can't legally be shown in class rooms. [proteacher.net]. People were sued for reselling stuff [smallbiztrends.com] despite first sale doctrine. The head of the RIAA once referred to backing up music like getting a free bottle of cognac (or was it whiskey, something like that) after you finish it (somehow, him not understanding the difference between a perishable and non-perishable good is both natural and disturbing to me). They wanted IPV6 (I could be wrong about that.) to have inherent DMCA protocols embedded into it. So... yeah, they will if they can.

  • To Cox's legal fund, they need to win

  • forcing everyone to go to mesh networking so that isps cant disconnect them if they wanted will improve free speech for everyone.

  • Electricity providers (Score:5, Funny)

    by AlexHilbertRyan ( 7255798 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @08:03PM (#61429778)
    Lets face it its the electricity providers that make piracy popssible. Shut down the grid - thats what i say.

  • One sided (Score:4, Interesting)

    by stikves ( 127823 ) on Thursday May 27, 2021 @09:51PM (#61429984) Homepage

    The problem is that the law is one sided.

    Sure, please do have rules that will ban me or any other users after so many strikes.
    But, we should also have rules to ban companies from making any further DMCA accusations after that many strikes as well. So, if Disney asks to block 10 IPs, and they turn out to be downloading Ubuntu, Disney gets no more rights to send DMCA take-downs anymore. At least as long a period as a regular user will be banned.

    (Not sure which company was the perp, but Ubuntu thing definitely happened):
    https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

    However they will keep the laws one sided. It is what they paid the senators for after all.

  • Like roads, It's the government's job to police, not the road pavers.
  • This problem is best solved by changing IP laws. 1. Limit IP rights to 5 years 2. Make copying and sharing for private purposes legal 3. Limit damages to provable losses - not assuming that purchases would have been made that have not taken place. 4. Limit label power over artists and their work through targeted legislation
  • 10 years ago almost everyone I knew pirated music, I can think of maybe two people I know who might still download mp3s and sync them to their phone. If I buy drugs, commit adultry in Utah or shop with stolen credit cards my internet does not get cut off. If I download the new Justin Timberlake song multiple times it goes to court? With options such as YouTube or Spotify with ads what damages can you really even claim? If I play the song 150 times I lost you 34 cents in ad revenue?

  • As always, this implies that peope would have licensed those works otherwise. Which is of course total bullshit. As if I's calculate anyone passing my hot dog stand without buing a hot dog as a "theft" of a hot dog.

    And it's not even real people. But pure speculation. "Estimated" numbers.

    For works they did not even make, but commissioned.

    And the original creators won't even get anything from it.

    So it's just blatant organized crime. That's all.

    • I believe these lawyers represent labels who put their full catalog on every major DSP. Lets estimate that out of a 10 dollar DSP subscription 50% goes to the corporations. If I pirate music for one year you lost 60 dollars divided up a bunch of ways.

  • Weird (Score:3)

    by GrahamJ ( 241784 ) on Friday May 28, 2021 @04:30PM (#61432346)

    It feels weird to be on the side of an ISP in a legal matter.

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