Jury sides against Cox in 'trailblazing' music piracy case
Source: AP-Excite
By TALI ARBEL
NEW YORK (AP) — A Virginia jury has issued a $25 million verdict against Cox Communications in an online piracy case that could mean more trouble for downloaders of illegal content.
Music company BMG had sued Cox in 2014, saying the cable company wasn't forwarding warnings about illegal downloads to its customers or stopping their behavior, even when the cable company knew about it.
Both sides saw this case as "trailblazing," said Marquette University Law School professor Bruce Boyden, and it makes clear that Internet service providers, or ISPs, are obliged to respond to takedown notices from rights holders.
The jury said Thursday that Cox customers infringed on BMG copyrights by uploading or downloading its songs on file-sharing BitTorrent systems, and that Cox was liable.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20151217/us-cox-piracy-317a8fa4cb.html
I hope Cox appeals.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
ManiacJoe
(10,136 posts)Or do I misunderstand how all that works?
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)A movie I can understand. Bands make their money playing live. The record companies do their damnest to steal the rest.
msongs
(67,441 posts)BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)When I listen to a song and I know the chords, what key it is in and everything else that the person is doing, am I stealing the song simply because I have perfect pitch and know (usually) even what chord or pattern they are going to play next.?
If people who perform (yes, I was one of them) want to make sure that their so-called "Art" (that's a joke) is not reproduced, then find a way to encode it.
Until then...tough shit.
Nihil
(13,508 posts)> People record events all the time. Are they stealing something.?
They are stealing the replay rights of that performance.
The only way that artists can currently pursue this in the courts would be
if there was an intention to release a live performance DVD/CD/whatever
product as the "fan" who records it and posts it online is costing the
artist a loss of income.
(There is also the slight matter of the breach of licence for the venue
but that is even harder for ordinary folks to grasp so forget it for now.)
> When I listen to a song and I know the chords, what key it is in and
> everything else that the person is doing, am I stealing the song simply
> because I have perfect pitch and know (usually) even what chord or
> pattern they are going to play next.?
Not even vaguely related(*) as few (if any) people would be interested
in just another musician of unknown ability imitating the artist. - YouTube
is full of losers doing precisely that.
A familiarity with chord progressions does not make you the same as
the original writer either in the eyes of the law or in the eyes of the
(genuine, not ripping off their heroes) fan so this is basically a strawman.
(*) unless you proceed to record that work without the rights-owner
giving/selling permission in which case you'll be on the receiving end
of a cease & desist followed by a damages suit if you don't.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)If someone records my piano performance and wants to share it, I couldn't care less. I hope they enjoy it.
I understand your post though. I don't download stuff that's illegal but I have no judgment about people who do.
randome
(34,845 posts)I download stuff all the time but I won't pretend there isn't a difference.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)...and number. Having said that, I don't use torrents but think the huge fines for doing so is ridiculous.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)or FBI would be knocking on our door.
We can watch, stream or 'copy and paste' just about anything (?) - but don't illegally download! We have to support intellectual property rights, or we won't have intellectuals!
Now, it wasn't me downloading - we had a very short 'conversation' with our son about something called 'anime tentacle sex' and made it clear "Don't download unless you pay for it like everyone else"! Then we quickly ran out of his room - Clarice Starling will be quite welcome to take it from here!
Tote Life
(72 posts)and they couldn't come up with the proof that I downloaded it, so I ignored my ISP's request to cease. I'm on my 2nd ISP because the other ISP screwed up our fiber optic networks four years later, knocking us out of service for a week. Other ISP set us up within a day, and we're loyal to them now. That said ISP owns M$NBC.
l.o.o.s.e.e-2
(53 posts)Interesting post, Omaha Steve, that I shared with my partner (both of us reading the accompanied, informative link.)
Partner feels that, with the "breakneck" speed that "tech" now embodies, the professor is somewhat behind the curve: as shared with me, the Marquette educator's analysis fails to comprehend that a "takedown notice" is only applicable to an entity which hosts content while Cox exists as only a transit point, and feels sorry for any jury that attempts to understand any of this subject matter.
I don't understand any of that but, for what it's worth, my partner agreed with you that Cox should appeal.
cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)I mean sure the law protecting isps from the actions of their customers might apply if they were being sued before they were ever notified about it but if they were notified and decided to not take any action the court was right in its ruling.
Of course I think 10 million is BS, it should be 1 dollar and attorney fees with an agreement that they will not break the law in this manner again or they will have to pay 100 million to a charity and they cannot write it off as a loss or take it off as a deduction on their taxes.
starroute
(12,977 posts)As nearly as I can tell, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes ISP's responsible for taking down infringing material that is found to be hosted on their own servers, but they've never been responsible for what their subscribers do in the way of downloading material from elsewhere. Unless the ISP's terms of service spell out that they have a right to control what their customers do online, they can't be held liable for those customers' actions.
http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/intellectual-property/isp-liability-for-the-acts-of-its-customers.html
When the internet first became popular in the 1990's, content creators became increasingly worried that their work would be put online and distributed without their consent (and without any return on their investment). In the real world, there's a physical cost and time investment that must be spent in copying something like a CD, and that cost is borne for each CD created. Digital content on the other hand has an almost zero "copying" cost since once the initial copy is created, millions of copies can be created without any additional cost - often with just the click of a button.
Accordingly, content providers took the stance that ISPs were similar to magazines and newspapers and must be held accountable for the material they "publish" or allowed to be published. ISPs argued that they were more akin to telephone companies, and were really just a medium to communicate through and shouldn't be held responsible for everything that passed through their system.
Ultimately, Congress stepped in and passed a series of laws including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which took the side of the ISPs, but also put in place safeguards to appease content providers.
cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)This case was based on the fact that they were notified by the copyright holder or their representatives and made the choice not to do what they were supposed to do which was notify the infringer to stop.
If they had not made that choice then the case would probably have gone the other way as they would have been protected still under the law.
starroute
(12,977 posts)At the link you give, it says (boldface mine):
"To qualify for the § 512(c) safe harbor, the OSP must not have actual knowledge that it is hosting infringing material or be aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent. It is clear from the statute and legislative history that an OSP has no duty to monitor its service or affirmatively seek infringing material on its system. However, the statute describes two ways in which an OSP can be put on notice of infringing material on its system: 1) notice from the copyright owner, known as notice and take down, and 2) the existence of 'red flags.'"
The references are to an ISP being asked to remove infringing material that it is hosting on its own system -- not to rap their own subscribers on the knuckles for using BitTorrent to download content that the ISP shouldn't be able to identify. (Since there's plenty of legal BitTorrent content as well.)
There may be something here I'm just missing,l but the concept behind the DMCA and related legislation is that copyright holders can ask a hosting provider to remove illegal material. And what I quoted above suggests that the idea of penalizing ordinary users -- for whom the ISP is acting like a telephone company and just passing stuff through its pipes -- has been soundly rejected.
cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)have an IP address usually and that does not provide contact information thus they have to rely on the ISP to contact the customer.
The ISP in this case though said fuck it and ignored them and while the law grants an ISP alot of protection it does not grant them complete immunity with the right to ignore a reasonable request by the copyright owner or their representatives.
Nihil
(13,508 posts)Cox obviously felt that they were above the need to pass on the takedown
notices to their customer - bad mistake - and so they have been justifiably
smacked for it.
If they hadn't been so high & mighty about it - thus becoming a willing
accomplice to the crime - and simply acted sensibly then there would be
no case for them to answer: they would have done everything in their
power to abide by the takedown as the "stopping the downloads" is already
seen as beyond their ability as a communications provider (rather than a
server/storage provider).
Tote Life
(72 posts)My old ISP sent me notifications when I was downloading contents I shouldn't be downloading.
I replied and asked for evidence.
They don't respond from there.
