Multiple record companies have sued US-based Internet Service provider Verizon for alleged “massive copyright infringement committed by tens of thousands of its subscribers”.
The parties named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit include all three major record companies, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group, plus ABKCO MUSIC. The lawsuit was filed on Friday (July 12) in New York.
Verizon is one of the largest Internet Service Providers in the US. The company generated $134 billion in 2023, and as of March 31, counted 114.8 million subscribers.
The labels are suing Verizon for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement.
According to the labels’ joint lawsuit, Verizon “provides its high-speed service to a massive community of online pirates, who it knows repeatedly use that service to infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights”.
The labels claim further that “over the past few years alone,” they have issued “hundreds of thousands of copyright infringement notices” to Verizon.
The labels claim that those notices “identify specific subscribers on Verizon’s network stealing” their sound recordings through peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent, which they said “are notorious hotbeds for copyright infringement.”
Added the labels: “While Verizon is famous for its ‘Can you hear me now?’ advertising campaign, it has intentionally chosen not to listen to complaints from copyright owners. Instead of taking action in response to those infringement notices as the law requires, Verizon ignored Plaintiffs’ notices and buried its head in the sand.
“Undeterred, infringing subscribers identified in Plaintiffs’ notices continued to use Verizon’s services to infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights with impunity. Meanwhile, Verizon continued to provide its high-speed service to thousands of known repeat infringers so it could continue to collect millions of dollars from them.”
The record labels claim that they have sent over 340,000 infringement notices to Verizon since early 2020.
In the lawsuit, they explained that “those notices clearly and unambiguously advised Verizon of its subscribers’ blatant and systematic use of Verizon’s Internet service to illegally download, copy, and distribute Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings through the P2P network known as BitTorrent.”
“The scope of repeat infringement on Verizon’s network is staggering.”
Lawsuit filed by record labels against Verizon
Labels added in the suit, which you can read in full here, that “the scope of repeat infringement on Verizon’s network is staggering”.
According to Universal, Sony, Warner, and the other plaintiffs, “thousands” of Verizon subscribers were the subject of 20 or more infringement notices.
Meanwhile, over 500 Verizon subscribers were the subject of 100 or more notices each, and the labels claim that one “particularly egregious Verizon subscriber” was “single-handedly” responsible for 4,450 infringement notices issued by the labels to Verizon.
The labels claim that Verizon “acknowledged that it received these notices of infringement,” which were sent by the labels’ representatives, but “rather than taking any steps to address its customers’ illegal use of its network, Verizon deliberately chose to ignore Plaintiffs’ notices, willfully blinding itself to that information and prioritizing its own profits over its legal obligations”.
The labels have also filed a 408-page document, which you can read here, detailing what they say is an “illustrative and non-exhaustive” list of the works that have allegedly been infringed by Verizon’s customers. The document lists 17,335 works.
The labels are seeking up to $150,000 in statutory damages for each work infringed, which means that, based on the contents of this list alone, total damages sought could exceed $2.6 billion.
“By flouting the law and rejecting the path of cooperation, Verizon has forfeited any claim to DMCA immunity and compelled music creators to turn to the courts to protect their rights and their work, including the 17,335 infringed recordings identified in the Complaint.”
Ken Doroshow, RIAA
Commenting on the legal action, RIAA Chief Legal Officer Ken Doroshow said: “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was designed to encourage creators and platforms to work together to deal with online piracy.
“The plaintiffs did their part, identifying and informing Verizon of more than 340,000 instances of blatant copyright infringement by anonymous users of Verizon’s network.
“But Verizon chose to ignore this mass scale infringement and has failed its most basic obligations under the law. By flouting the law and rejecting the path of cooperation, Verizon has forfeited any claim to DMCA immunity and compelled music creators to turn to the courts to protect their rights and their work, including the 17,335 infringed recordings identified in the Complaint.”
The new lawsuit marks the latest legal action filed by record companies against ISPs in the US.
Amongst them are Bright House Networks, Grande Communications and Cox Communications.
The music companies’ lawsuit against Cox, originally filed in 2018, alleged that Cox “knowingly contributed to, and reaped substantial profits from, massive copyright infringement committed by thousands of its subscribers.”
In 2019, the court ordered Cox to pay the labels total damages of around $1 billion, but in February of this year, the court struck down the $1 copyright infringement verdict.
In March, a US federal appeals court turned down a request to rehear a ruling from February, in which it overturned the $1 billion award against Cox.
Over the past year, Altice USA, another major ISP, was also hit with two copyright infringement suits over its subscribers’ alleged music piracy, with music companies including BMG, Universal Music, Capitol Records and Concord Music Group seeking $1 billion in one case, and Sony Music and Warner Music Group seeking $1.6 billion in another.Music Business Worldwide
