Music Publisher Sues ISP Over Piracy

Round Hill Music and BMG Rights Management have teamed up to file a lawsuit against Cox Communication, accusing the Internet Service Provider of failing to punish users found to be downloading music illegally.

Round Hill Music and BMG are represented by copyright enforcement company Rightscorp, a business that makes its money hounding both ISPs and users they believe to have infringed copyrighted materials. Earlier this week, Rightscorp were hit with their own lawsuit, accusing them making harassing “robo-calls”, in breach of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991.

The lawsuit accuses Cox Communications of wilfully facilitating pirates by not taking action against them. Their lawyers write, “Today, BitTorrent systems are like the old P2P systems on steroids. Despite its published policy to the contrary, Cox’s actual policy is to refuse to suspend, terminate, or otherwise penalize subscriber accounts that repeatedly commit copyright infringement through its network in any meaningful numbers.”

There seems to be little precedent for any case that assumes an ISP’s responsibility for its users, so, if Cox Communications are adjudged to be liable, it could force providers to introduce more draconian measures to monitor and restrict the users of its network in order to comply with the law.

Source: ars technica