Record labels sue Verizon for not disconnecting pirates’ Internet service

Major record labels sued Verizon on Friday, alleging that the Internet service provider violated copyright law by continuing to serve customers accused of pirating music. Verizon “knowingly provides its high-speed service to a massive community of online pirates,” said the complaint filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Universal, Sony, and Warner say they have sent over 340,000 copyright infringement notices to Verizon since early 2020. “Those notices identify specific subscribers on Verizon’s network stealing Plaintiffs’ sound recordings through peer-to-peer (‘P2P’) file-sharing networks that are notorious hotbeds for copyright infringement,” the lawsuit said.

Record labels allege that “Verizon ignored Plaintiffs’ notices and buried its head in the sand” by “continu[ing] to provide its high-speed service to thousands of known repeat infringers so it could continue to collect millions of dollars from them.” They say that “Verizon has knowingly contributed to, and reaped substantial profits from, massive copyright infringement committed by tens of thousands of its subscribers.”

The firms allege that Verizon is guilty of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement and should have to pay damages of up to $150,000 for each work infringed. Plaintiffs filed what they call a “non-exhaustive” list of infringed works that includes 17,335 titles. That would imply requested damages of over $2.6 billion.

Numerous lawsuits against ISPs

Record labels and movie studios have filed numerous copyright lawsuits against Internet providers. Perhaps the most significant ongoing case involves Cox Communications, which has been fighting a $1 billion jury verdict since 2019.

Cox received support from groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which warned that the big money judgment could cause broadband providers to disconnect people from the Internet based only on accusations of copyright infringement. The US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit overturned the $1 billion verdict in February 2024, rejecting Sony’s claim that Cox profited directly from copyright infringement committed by users of Cox’s cable broadband network.

While judges in the Cox case reversed a vicarious liability verdict, they affirmed the jury’s additional finding of willful contributory infringement and ordered a new damages trial.

Cox recently said it is seeking a Supreme Court review on the questions of “whether an Internet service provider materially contributes to copyright infringement by declining to disconnect an Internet account knowing someone is likely to use it to infringe,” and “whether a secondary infringer can be adjudged willful based merely on knowledge of another’s direct infringement.” There is a circuit split on both questions, Cox said.

4,450 notices about one IP address

In the Verizon case, record labels claim that thousands of Verizon subscribers “were the subject of 20 or more notices from Plaintiffs, and more than 500 subscribers were the subject of 100 or more notices. One particularly egregious Verizon subscriber was single-handedly the subject of 4,450 infringement notices from Plaintiffs alone.”

That Verizon subscriber’s IP address was identified in 4,450 infringement notices between March 2021 and August 2023, the lawsuit said. Two other subscribers were allegedly the subject of 2,703 and 2,068 infringement notices, respectively.

“Verizon acknowledged that it received these notices of infringement sent by Plaintiffs’ representatives,” the lawsuit said. “Yet 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 plaintiffs claim that “Verizon has gone out of its way not to take action against subscribers engaging in repeated copyright infringement,” and “failed to terminate or otherwise take any meaningful action against the accounts of repeat infringers of which it was aware.”

“It is well-established law that if a party materially assists someone it knows is engaging in copyright infringement, that party is fully liable for the infringement as if it had infringed directly,” the lawsuit said.

Complaint system too onerous, suit claims

The lawsuit also complains that Verizon hasn’t made it easier for copyright owners to file complaints about Internet users:

Through one channel, Verizon claims to allow copyright holders to send P2P notices through a so-called “Anti-Piracy Cooperation Program,” but it has attached such onerous conditions to participation that the program is rendered a nullity. Not only has Verizon required participants to pay burdensome fees for simple, automated processes like Internet Protocol (“IP”) address lookups and notice forwarding, but participants have been required to waive their copyright claims, broadly indemnify Verizon, and, tellingly, keep the terms of the program confidential. Verizon has also limited the number of notices it will forward pursuant to the program.

The lawsuit said Verizon also allows copyright owners to send email notices of infringement instead of using the channel described above. The email method apparently doesn’t require copyright owners to waive their copyright claims or make payments, but the lawsuit alleges that “Verizon does not forward these notices to subscribers or track the number of email notices sent regarding repeat infringing subscribers. Verizon also arbitrarily caps the number of notices permitted per copyright holder at this address—ironic, to say the least, given that Verizon ignored hundreds of thousands of Plaintiffs’ notices to this email inbox.”

We contacted Verizon about the lawsuit and will update this article if it provides a response.