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Major record labels have banded together to sue Verizon for violating copyright law by serving those accused of music piracy.
On Friday July 12, major record labels including Universal, Sony, and Warner have alleged that internet service provider Verizon has violated copyright law by continuing to offer services to those accused or pirating music, as reported by Arc Technica. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, claims that Verizon “knowingly provides its high-speed service to a massive community of online pirates.”
Universal, Sony, and Warner claim that they have sent more than 340,000 copyright infringement notices to Verizon between them 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 reads.
Verizon has allegedly ignored those notices, with the lawsuit adding that “Verizon has knowingly contributed to, and reaped substantial profits from, massive copyright infringement committed by tens of thousands of its subscribers.” The plaintiffs are claiming to be owed damages of up to $150,000 for each work infringed. Considering that the plaintiffs have filed what is described as a “non-exhaustive” list of infringed works including 17,335 titles, that would suggest final damages could reach over $2.6 billion.
Music piracy and internet providers
This isn’t the first time record labels and movie studios have filed similar lawsuits against internet providers, with an ongoing case involving Cox Communications fighting a $1 billion jury verdict since 2019.
In the Verizon case specifically, 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.”
Two others were also allegedly the subject of 2,703 and 2,068 infringement notices, respectively. Although Verizon has acknowledged it received those notices, the company has allegedly not taken sufficient action to address “illegal use of the network”.
According to copyright law, any party knowingly assisting someone engaging in copyright infringement is also liable for that crime. The lawsuit also complains that Verizon doesn’t make it easy enough for copyright owners to file complaints about its customers.
