Music firms hit web service operator Altice USA with $1bn copyright infringement lawsuit

Web service operator Altice, which owns the Optimum broadband and cable model, has change into the newest US IP to be hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit alleging a number of incidents of music piracy through its companies.

Claimed to be one of many “largest connectivity suppliers within the US”, web supplier Altice USA has greater than 5 million clients in 21 US states.

The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday (December 14) in Texas by quite a lot of rightsholders, together with BMG, in addition to Common Music, Capitol Information and Harmony Music Group.

They’re suing Optimum’s proprietor over “thousands and thousands” of alleged infringements of “1000’s” of their songs.

The lawsuit claims that “by way of the availability of high-speed web companies, Altice has knowingly contributed to and earned substantial earnings from, copyright infringement dedicated by 1000’s of its subscribers”.

It provides: “The infringement that Altice has abided, profited from, and materially contributed to has injured Plaintiffs, their recording artists and songwriters, and others whose livelihoods depend upon the right licensing of music and the flexibility to be pretty compensated for using their music and earn a dwelling from their vocations.”

The declare, which you can learn in full right here, facilities across the alleged unlawful downloading of music through P2P platform BitTorrent by Altice’s clients.

In keeping with the lawsuit, “the net piracy dedicated through BitTorrent is gorgeous in nature, velocity, and scope” and that the “BitTorrent protocol permits a uniquely environment friendly means for facilitating unlawful file sharing”.

BMG, UMG and Harmony declare that utilizing BitTorrent, Altice’s subscribers “have pirated many 1000’s of sound recordings and musical compositions which can be protected by copyrights and equal rights owned by or solely licensed to Plaintiffs”.

They declare additional that Altice, “has acquired over 1,000,000 notices of infringement of Plaintiffs’ works by Altice subscribers” and that these notices involved “shut to twenty,000” of Altice’s subscribers.

“Many of those are usually not simply one-time offenders,” the submitting provides. “They’re persistent and repeat infringers.” Altice allegedly “turned a blind eye” after receiving these notices.

“The scope and quantity of infringing exercise happening utilizing the Altice companies illustrates that, somewhat than terminating repeat infringers—and shedding income attributable to these subscribers’ month-to-month charges — Altice merely seemed the opposite method,” states the rightsholders declare.

It notes additional that the legislation “is obvious {that a} get together that knowingly and materially assists somebody participating in copyright infringement faces legal responsibility for that infringement”.

The plaintiffs are searching for damages of as much as $150,000 for every of the infringed works. The ‘Exhibit A’ doc filed together with the declare, which you’ll be able to view right here, lists over 7,000, which means damages sought by BMG, UMG and Harmony might exceed $1 billion.

This newest case follows a number of different high-profile circumstances and settlements addressing infringement by subscribers utilizing the companies of web suppliers together with Grand Communications, Cox Communications and Vivid Home Networks/Constitution.

In 2018, BMG settled a long-running copyright infringement case towards the third largest ISP within the US, Cox Communications, for a “substantial” sum.

That very same yr, Common, Sony and Warner filed a lawsuit towards the ISP, accusing it on the time of getting “knowingly contributed to, and reaped substantial earnings from, large copyright infringement dedicated by 1000’s of its subscribers”.

In December 2019, a jury determined that the agency was accountable for the infringement of over 10,000 music copyrights by its customers and it was ordered to pay the labels over $99,000 for every of the ten,017 alleged works that had been infringed – the equal of $1 billion in collective damages.

In August, a variety of document labels, together with Common Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Leisure settled a copyright infringement lawsuit towards US web service supplier Vivid Home Networks on the eve of a scheduled listening to in a Florida courtroom.

In November, a federal jury in Austin ordered US telecommunications and web supplier Grande Communications to pay $46.7 million in damages to a bunch of document labels for infringement.Music Enterprise Worldwide