Sony, Warner and Universal secured a $1 billion payout of damages from Cox Communications last week, after a jury in Virginia found that the internet service provider (ISP) wilfully allowed its customers to illegally download music.
On Thursday, December 18, a jury at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found that Cox Communications had vicariously or contributorily infringed more than 10,000 musical works.
Sony, Warner, Universal and several other record companies sued Cox Communications in July last year, accusing the ISP of deliberately refusing to “take reasonable measures to curb its customers from using its internet services to infringe on others’ copyrights”.
The record companies said that they had sent thousands of statutory infringement notices to Cox, advising the ISP of its subscribers’ “blatant and systematic use” of Cox’s service to illegally download, copy, and distribute copyright-protected music.
“Rather than working with plaintiffs to curb this massive infringement, Cox unilaterally imposed an arbitrary cap on the number of infringement notices it would accept from copyright holders, thereby willfully blinding itself to any of its subscribers’ infringements that exceeded its ‘cap’,” said the suit.
The record companies also said that Cox had claimed to have implemented a “thirteen-strike policy” before terminating service of repeat infringers but, in reality, never permanently terminated its subscribers.
“The reason for this is simple: rather than stop its subscribers’ unlawful activity, Cox prioritised its own profits over its legal obligations,” said the claim.
Source: World Intellectual Property Review
