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The Internet Music Piracy The Courts

Music Labels Sue Charter, Complain That High Internet Speeds Fuel Piracy (arstechnica.com) 197

The music industry is suing Charter Communications, claiming that the cable Internet provider profits from music piracy by failing to terminate the accounts of subscribers who illegally download copyrighted songs. The lawsuit also complains that Charter helps its subscribers pirate music by selling packages with higher Internet speeds. Ars Technica reports: While the act of providing higher Internet speeds clearly isn't a violation of any law, ISPs can be held liable for their users' copyright infringement if the ISPs repeatedly fail to disconnect repeat infringers. The top music labelsâ"Sony, Universal, Warner, and their various subsidiariesâ"sued Charter Friday in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado. While Charter has a copyright policy that says repeat copyright infringers may be disconnected, Charter has failed to disconnect those repeat infringers in practice, the complaint said: "Despite these alleged policies, and despite receiving hundreds of thousands of infringement notices from Plaintiffs, as well as thousands of similar notices from other copyright owners, Charter knowingly permitted specifically identified repeat infringers to continue to use its network to infringe. Rather than disconnect the Internet access of blatant repeat infringers to curtail their infringement, Charter knowingly continued to provide these subscribers with the Internet access that enabled them to continue to illegally download or distribute Plaintiffs' copyrighted works unabated. Charter's provision of high-speed Internet service to known infringers materially contributed to these direct infringements."

The complaint accuses Charter of contributory copyright infringement and vicarious copyright infringement. Music labels asked for statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each work infringed or for actual damages including any profit Charter allegedly made from allowing piracy. The complaint focuses on alleged violations between March 24, 2013 and May 17, 2016. During that time, plaintiffs say they sent infringement notices to Charter that "advised Charter of its subscribers' blatant and systematic use of Charter's Internet service to illegally download, copy, and distribute Plaintiffs' copyrighted music through BitTorrent and other online file-sharing services." The music industry's complaint repeatedly focused on BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer networks, saying that "online piracy committed via BitTorrent is stunning in nature, speed, and scope."

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Music Labels Sue Charter, Complain That High Internet Speeds Fuel Piracy

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  • by ravenshrike ( 808508 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:08PM (#58333708)

    Seriously though, the first claim is at least plausible and might go somewhere. The second however is just batshit straw grasping crazy.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:16PM (#58333752)

      No, the first one is also batshit crazy. Or will Music Labels be on the hook for people who listen to their music that advocate doing drugs, selling them, or killing people and then one person does all the above over a period of time? The Music Labels can already go after downloaders if they want. Presumably part of their complaint is Charter isn't doing enough to preemptively police its customers, but then see above about people shooting people; we don't hold music labels to the standard of policing its customers either. That's literally the job of police and for civil matters the courts over the actors actually involved. Now, if they could prove Charter was complicit in aiding them through intent, that'd be a whole other matter.

      • So they should change their policy to eliminate disconects for copyright infringement? It's the policy that the music cartel is complaining about here.
    • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:23PM (#58333786)

      fail to disconnect repeat infringes did a court prove that they are infringes?

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        We really don't want courts involved in this. Courts are expensive and many people can't afford to properly defend themselves.

        Best thing would just be to make the penalty for non-commercial infringement zero.

        • In criminal court the STATE has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt and you have an right to an public defender.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @11:36PM (#58334362) Homepage

      Sorry, you can not illegally download. By law, the uploader, is claiming copyright, illegally, you are not responsible for their actions as a downloader, they claim right to do so, you access that content based upon their claim. The greater the bandwidth the cheaper it is to distribute content, 'THE CHEAPER IT IS TO SELF PUBLISH', so the laws of competition demand mass access to mass bandwidth to actively promote the most competitive form of publication, self publication, technically failure to do so would go against constitutional demands, EQUALITY OF ACCESS.

      If Charter attempts to control the content in any way beyond the requirements of law, they can be sued for failing to do so properly, however if they do not transmit content, just bits per second, and only act to control those bits as required by law ie they claim ZERO control of content and only transmit bits, they can not be sued. There is no sound economic reason for them to have that content control hardware and labour in place, it places them in extreme legal jeopardy and represents an extremely anti-competitive practice with the clear intent to shut down public access to the internet by the corrupt application of legally jeopardy with regards to the control of bits, rather than the control of content.

      There is a right for the public to demand that the digital highway be free of denial, control and manipulation of access, to favour the few at the public's expense, and any attempts to do so will be at the political expense of those corrupt individuals who attempt it and especially those who ineptly succeed for a short time.

      • by Kjella ( 173770 )

        Sorry, you can not illegally download. By law, the uploader, is claiming copyright, illegally, you are not responsible for their actions as a downloader

        The first exclusive right [cornell.edu] given to copyright holders is reproduction, not distribution. Recording TV and radio broadcasts is fair use, but downloading illegally uploaded files is not. Though they have to prove you actually saved it and not simply streamed it, it is not illegal to watch.

  • Next up (Score:5, Funny)

    by Red_Forman ( 5546482 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:09PM (#58333716)

    We need to sue music labels for trying to sell annoying thumping noises as "music".

  • Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Firethorn ( 177587 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:09PM (#58333718) Homepage Journal

    I wonder if the music labels still consider anything over 56k to be "high speed", as any internet connection capable of streaming acceptable video at SDTV resolutions, much less HDTV, makes downloading audio, which is generally about 1% of a video stream, trivial.

    Even with just a megabit connection, I could download months worth of audio traffic in a single day.

    But then, music labels still haven't figured out:
    1. They need to make buying music from them convenient.
    2. They can't charge prices higher than video content producers.

    It's crazy that buying the soundtrack to a movie often costs more than the movie.

    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Even with just a megabit connection, I could download months worth of audio traffic in a single day.

      Meh, you really don't want to go much lower than 128 kbps so 1/8th of a megabit = 8 days of music per day at 100% utilization. Don't get me wrong it was at least faster than real time unlike dial-up, but it was not all that fast. Now I got fiber and 350 Mbps, a back of the napkin estimate says Spotify's 35 million song collection is ~100 TB and I could download it in a month. Good luck by stopping piracy by volume, it's like 2001 called and wanted their Napster arguments back.

    • There was probably more piracy during the 56k era. I think they realized that their Spotify revenue isn't high enough and they want to blame it on piracy. They should have just stopped with DRM-free MP3s.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I wonder if the music labels still consider anything over 56k to be "high speed", as any internet connection capable of streaming acceptable video at SDTV resolutions, much less HDTV, makes downloading audio, which is generally about 1% of a video stream, trivial. [...]

      Anything over 14.4K is "high speed", according to CenturyLink.

    • Argument 1 is a bit dated now. It used to be true, but there are a number of legal online music services around now that generally work reliably.

      Less true for video. There are a few of those too, but no one service has a complete library of modern popular television.

    • I've often wondered about how I would react if some music industry person one day decided to take me to court for piracy. I've had a number of letters from Virgin, suggesting that my connection has been used to download such-and-such via BitTorrent. (note: no, it wasn't Natalie Portman Naked & Petrified Hot Grits Porn © Slashdot 2001). The letters are worded such that it suggests that the copyright owner has 'seen' my computer 'offering' the content via Bittorrent sharing. I'm not convinced that th

      • by orient ( 535927 )

        3) Let's say that a judge buys the "IP" argument, so now the industry bod is showing how at the same time a movie was being downloaded, it was also being uploaded as well. So... how did you come via that data? To obtain such data you would have required access to data from my computer, and permission to access that has never been granted by me. That would mean an offence has been committed in collecting the "evidence", and thus it would be dismissed from the case.

        Actually, #3 can be obtained from the torrent tracker, not from your computer.
        By the way, there is a way to see what an IP address downloaded in the last few days: https://iknowwhatyoudownload.c... [iknowwhatyoudownload.com]

      • The difficulty of going after individuals is why the music labels are now suing ISPs instead. Obviously, the ISPs also have far more money.

        For 2, you have to remember that in civil litigation, the burden of proof is "preponderance of the evidence", not "beyond a reasonable doubt". If they find a 4 TB hard drive full of songs that they've identified as being shared by you, and you have no way of explaining how you legally acquired that much music, then it is legally valid for the jury to believe the music
    • by 1ucius ( 697592 )

      The "high-speed" stuff is a red herring (side note: ars technica articles re legal issues should always be taken with a grain of salt). The complaint is really about failure to 'deplatform' after repeated cases of illegal use.

    • by Hodr ( 219920 )

      It's crazy that buying the soundtrack to a movie often costs more than the movie.

      It is, and it isn't. From the cost to produce perspective it's crazy if an album costs 1/100th of a films cost but is sold for more.

      That said, from a value to consumer perspective it makes more sense. How often do you watch a movie. Most movies I watch once or twice, and movies I really really enjoy maybe once a year.

      But music I enjoy? Hundreds of times, thousands, more over a lifetime?

  • And that's why... (Score:5, Informative)

    by AsylumWraith ( 458952 ) <{wraithage} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:10PM (#58333720)

    I don't buy music from major labels anymore. Not that they sell anything worth listening to, anyway. If it can't be found on Bandcamp, or an indie label, it's probably not even worth listening to these days.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:14PM (#58333740)

    Regular folks can't even bring a suit against a company like Experian, which they can't even boycott, and who loses their information. Because there's no damage to show. And, somehow these clowns can get this lawsuit off the ground!?

    CAPTCHA: defraud

  • What a bunch or morons.
    Piracy has been going on since dial up modem times.
    Further, they're still relying on the argument that this sort of piracy cost the stakeholders anything. A lot of minor piraters wouldn't buy the piece in the first place. Yes it's theft of services, but not piracy.
    Going after the small fry is pointless, and doesn't do a damn thing about real piracy.
    Stupid old men. Get off my lawn!
    While the idiot is out front yelling at the kids, the real criminal has snuck in the backdoor and
    • Piracy has been going on since dial up modem times.

      Well... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      The earliest documented instances of piracy are the exploits of the Sea Peoples who threatened the ships sailing in the Aegean and Mediterranean waters in the 14th century BC.

      [ Perhaps they had *really* long landlines ... ]

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by meglon ( 1001833 )
        They were tapping in to the underwater cables there. It was easy to fine them as they were much larger then, what with having to push through papyrus scrolls.
      • I suspect the Sea People would abduct local musicians to sing for them at sea, literally pirating local music.
      • [ Perhaps they had *really* long landlines ... ]

        They were called landline lubbers

    • Re:Utter BULL$H1T (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dryeo ( 100693 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @10:10PM (#58334238)

      Actually, in the meaning of copyright infringement, perhaps since 1603 and the 1886 Berne convention mentioned it by name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
      What has change is that "piracy" meant for profit copyright infringement until recently when referring to peer to peer sharing.
      Me, I was taught that sharing was good and showed a positive character.

  • Block streaming (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:17PM (#58333764)

    Maybe Charter should block music streaming sites. Charge the music industry a huge monthly fee for access to subscribers. There's no net neutrality, so it shouldn't be a problem.

    Apple charges for access to Apple users, not a lot different really.

  • by sjames ( 1099 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:23PM (#58333788) Homepage Journal

    The music industry profits by selling bank robbers the music they use to get themselves psyched up for the big hit.

  • by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:24PM (#58333794)

    ..... is stunning in nature, speed, and scope. Indeed. And I take great pleasure in fucking over you music industry douchebags.

    I find other ways to support the actual artists, they have value to society. The RIAA otoh, has none at all.

  • by dfenstrate ( 202098 ) <dfenstrateNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:25PM (#58333796)

    ...and we're all being played. Has anyone verified the court filing? (No, I didn't RTFA, just skimmed the summary.)

    • The music labels have sued other ISPs (e.g. Cox) for the same thing before, so what makes this article not believable?
  • Yep, a relative few folks are downloading your intellectual material via Torrent, who wouldn't otherwise actually purchase your product, and a thousand unregulated Chinese companies are reproducing copies of your life's work as fast as the paying market demands.

  • by SmaryJerry ( 2759091 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:34PM (#58333824)
    The music labels have decided to sue the US postal service for still delivering packages sent by infringers who mailed copied CDs. Music labels say priority mail enablles the CDs to be shared even more rapidly.
    • by Khyber ( 864651 )

      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a USPS truck packed with CD-ROMs full of pirated material!

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:37PM (#58333828)

    If the music industry is suing because people download crappy music, can we upload really crappy music and then sue the music industry?

  • Music labels sue slow ISPs, which force people to pirate individual tracks and get together to exchange them in person, which decreases the labels' revenues from streaming services.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:49PM (#58333852)

    You can easily find a direct download that isn't traceable of 99% of musics these days... Not to mention you can simply rip the audio from a youtube video.

  • by Jody Bruchon ( 3404363 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @08:05PM (#58333898)
    ISPs are required by the DMCA to have a repeat infringer termination policy and to follow that policy. The exact subtext that lays out this requirement [copyright.gov] reads: "[for an ISP to be eligible for limited liability status]...it must adopt and reasonably implement a policy of terminating in appropriate circumstances the accounts of subscribers who are repeat infringers," I propose this as a layman's version of that policy:

    "If a court of law issues multiple judgments (or multiple counts in a single judgment) against you that find you guilty of copyright infringement, and finds that those acts of copyright infringement were performed while directly using our services for access, your high-speed internet account with us will be terminated immediately. DMCA takedown notices are considered to be unproven allegations and will not be treated as proof of infringement without the previously mentioned court order being provided."

    This appropriately balances the interests of the rightsholders and the alleged infringers while following the requirement set forth in the DMCA. A DMCA takedown notice has never constituted proof of infringement; they exist to have allegedly infringing content taken down quickly and a process exists by which the affected person can challenge the notice and force the rightsholders into court if they still want it taken down. The entire problem here is that DMCA takedown notices are being treated as having equal legal weight to a court judgment of copyright infringement when that's clearly not the case.

    I wish someone would email this suggestion to the ISPs so they could implement it and make this stupid crap go away already. If the ISPs did this, rightsholders would be forced to support their allegations in court to disconnect alleged infringers rather than expecting their completely unproven and potentially baseless say-so to automatically result in a permanent disconnection.
    • by lusid1 ( 759898 )

      Thats a remarkably bad idea The RIAA would just sue people arbitrarily (they've done it before), people that couldn't afford to do anything BUT just roll over and take it (this was actually their business plan for a while), then they'd be cut off from the net because they just couldn't afford to defend themselves against a bully. And nobody can bully people like the RIAA can bully people.

    • It has been noted multiple times that the copyright infringement claims are bogus. Sometimes people are indeed copying music - that goes without saying (I am aware of at least one person who has a multi TB horde of illegal downloads that they represent as their personal collection).

      However, the "complaint" still needs to be proven or at least strong evidence shown. We're all aware of the stories from years back where automated software was sending take-downs, and in many cases fair-use was a legitimate d

  • Because shitty, overly promoted mainstream music, an antiquated business model, an arrogant attitude and a complete misunderstanding of their audience are what fuels piracy. Hell, we can toss in income inequality as well. ( Tip: You're not gonna sell your product to those who can't afford it. )

    Oh and. . . . because some people just want to watch the world burn :D

  • Simple to solve:
    1) ISP need to counter-sue companies like Sony, etc. They are causing issues that are not there.
    2) Smart ISPs would split off services from physical hardware. They were better off having loads of companies that delivered services. The more services the harder it is for the labels.
  • by ZorinLynx ( 31751 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @09:23PM (#58334120) Homepage

    With services like Spotify and Apple Music where you can listen to pretty much any song ever released any time for only a few bucks a month, is music piracy still such a big problem?

    • I've been a pirate since before Napster - never joined 'the scene,' but had access to my share of exclusive tracker sites, and did some repackaging. From my perspective as an insider... you're right. Piracy has declined. There are just so many legitimate, affordable, dependable services now. Who wants to mess around with finding good torrents when you can just subscribe to Netflix?

      Music piracy today usually means finding a youtube downloader site and using that to just grab youtube rips. The quality isn't g

    • With services like Spotify and Apple Music where you can listen to pretty much any song ever released any time for only a few bucks a month, is music piracy still such a big problem?

      Services like Spotify and Apple Music have failed to provide lossless quality, despite demand for it. So one reason piracy is still around could be attributed to that. Which raises a question; if you are paying for said service, and the song or songs are provided by said service, does downloading a lossless version of those songs constitute a violation so long as service is maintained?

    • Of course it is because the music industry is making $X billion and they think they should be making $Y billion where Y > X. No matter what actual numbers you plug in there, they always think they should be getting more money. Now, they could blame themselves for producing poor quality music and put in the hard work to find better artists. Alternatively, they can blame "piracy," claim without evidence that piracy hurts the industry to the tune of $(Y - X) billion a year, and then sue companies and people

    • by 1ucius ( 697592 )

      "for only a few bucks a month" is still more than zero

  • by meglon ( 1001833 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @09:36PM (#58334148)

    Music Labels Sue Charter, Complain That High Internet Speeds Fuel Piracy

    Clearly they've never had Charter as a service provider.

    • I'll stand up for Charter for cable internet.

      In my area it's fast (100mbps), stable (no outages in a year, can't recall the last one actually), and they don't enforce a data cap (my wife leaves YouTube TV on all night most nights and I have a lot of Steam traffic).

      That said, their TV offerings are way overpriced and the last DVR we had from them was worse than Tivo from year 2000. It was really crappy.

      • by meglon ( 1001833 )
        In my area that's what i'm supposed to get. Turns out, by their own speed test, that i'm getting roughly 2-3/15-18 pretty consistently. As far as outages, usually been good on that... only a couple since i've had them... BUT i have a folder full of ~400+ drops some lasting 5-10 minutes over the last 5 years.
  • by CaptainDork ( 3678879 ) on Monday March 25, 2019 @09:44PM (#58334168)

    ... repeat infringers ...

    Why in simple hell didn't they go after those individuals?

    ISPs and the Internet infrastructure need to be classified as a utility.

    By the music industry's logic, they could also sue electric companies for powering pirate-enabling devices, right?

    • by SuricouRaven ( 1897204 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @02:37AM (#58334606)

      Publicity, largely. Hard to target people based on a demographic profile when you can't identify them until after the lawsuit is started, and "Music label sues schoolteacher for $150,000" is an awful headline PR-wise.

      If they had some way to ensure they only sued unlikeable people who the public felt no sympathy for, I'm sure sure they would - just to set an example and scare people.

      • Plus, there's the technical argument that the music industry is saying "we saw this IP address uploading songs so we know FOR A FACT that it was this person" when you really can't tie IP address to a person. It could be a grandma with an open WiFi connection - who doesn't know how to secure it. It could be a student whose roommate went on his computer without his knowledge. It could be a parent whose teenager uploaded the songs. However, the music industry doesn't care about reality and just wants to add to

    • Why in simple hell didn't they go after those individuals?

      Because those individuals don't have gobs of money....

    • by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      By the music industry's logic, they could also sue electric companies for powering pirate-enabling devices, right?

      Hey, don't go giving them any ideas!

  • “But we have no customers!”

  • Optical discs? Does anyone actually use those any more?
  • by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @12:48AM (#58334470) Journal

    I wonder how many GPL violations the music industry commits?

    I wonder what would happen if GPL licenses were enforced for the music industry?

    • You don't even need to go that far. The music industry regularly violates the copyright of music owned by the artists. From collecting royalties and "not being able to find the artists", to designating CD club sales as "promotional copies" and thus not owned royalties, to outright just using works and not paying the royalties owed. They care deeply about copyright violations - until it's convenient or profitable for them to ignore them.

  • If the music execs were tortured over the course of a month or so, with their corpses left lying in public spaces, they would stop this utter shit. Why the fuck should any ISP be in charge of policing their users? If you know who the infringer is, sue them or have them arrested. Leave the ISP out of the punishment phase.

  • Music taste gets defined between 12 and 18 years of age. To download all the music you ever heard in these years you'll need about 10 minutes of torrenting nowadays.
    Then you don't have to pay for Spotify, Amazon or Apple music, ever.

    • Actually, no, When I was 12 to 18, I listened to rock and yes, danced to disco. I thought jazz and classical were really boring. Now that I'm older, guess what I listen to? Yep, jazz and classical, with occasionally a little classic rock for nostalgia. The great thing is my 18-year old daughter sometimes listens to 70s and 80s rock to, and puts it on for me when she has the aux cable in the car. (Ok, it's really bluetooth, not an aux cable, but you get the idea.)
      • ...she has the aux cable in the car. (Ok, it's really bluetooth, not an aux cable, but you get the idea.)

        So when she has the bluetooth in the car?

        Wait, that doesn't make sense either. Perhaps you should have left that whole part out.

  • all broadband will be destroyed and everyone must connect via a 56k modem to 100 year old telegraph lines
  • It's not the high speeds.
    It's the business model of the music industry...

  • Would it help if ISPs phrase their TOS repeat infringer policy to read: multiple CONVICTIONS for copyright infringement and they will be disconnected?
  • FUCK YOU!

    Nobody wants or needs you.
    You could all die and no one would miss you.

    • The internet was _supposed_ to bring us disintermediation, also known as "eliminating the middle man". Record companies are vultures feeding on aspiring artists. While I think people should pay for what they listen to or watch, I'm bothered by 90% of that money going to someone like Simon Cowell.
  • Drug cartels can haul large amounts of drugs with trucks at high speed over motorways. Therefore motorways are to blame for drug addiction and should be banned.

  • by sad_ ( 7868 )

    suing hard disk vendors for allowing too much storage space, suing cpu vendors for making cpu's that are so fast they can play music easily, suing hifi vendors for making devices that allows to play music at any time of your choice, suing people for having ears.

  • Let's slow everyone down so it will stop piracy!!!

    Give me a break. Even when I had a lowly 2400 baud modem I'd just dial up, queue my downloads, and let it run "in batch" if you will overnight. You can't stop me if I really, really want that content, don't want to pay for it, and it is available from the local pirate-area.

    Perhaps make content that is good enough that I want to actually BUY? What a novel idea!

  • While we at it, why don't we sue public transportation for making it easier for poor people to get to rich people's houses to burglarize them?
  • Curse you, Music Industry. You're making me defend Charter! Do you know how much I hate Charter? A lot. I'd drop them in a second if I had any alternative in my area. However, your lawsuit is so laughable and groundless that I'm forced to take Charter's side in this. Stop it right now so I can get back to complaining about how bad Charter is.

  • TEN TIMES the piracy!

    AAAAAAARRRRRR!!

  • tomorrow they will be suing the electric company for providing electricity that help facilitate piracy.

  • The lawsuit also complains that Charter helps its subscribers pirate music by selling packages with higher Internet speeds.

    And highways help move illegal goods around at a fast rate, and allow criminals to move quickly from one state to another to avoid local law enforcement. Can we sue governments for putting up these roads that facilitate crime?

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