Cox Must Pay $25M For Not Stopping Repeat Pirates

It looks like a jury has handed down a $25 million verdict against Cox for failing to stop repeat pirates. The silver lining for Cox is that the plaintiffs were originally asking for $200 million.

For those new to this story, let’s take a step back. Music publishing giant BMG Rights Management accused Cox of failing to live up to its obligations under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That law requires ISPs to do what they can to limit access for repeat copyright infringers. If Cox had followed those guidelines, it would have benefited from “safe harbor” protections that shield Internet Service Providers from being held liable for their customers’ piracy.

Phone companies should be required to "do what they can" to limit conversations not approved by the government...

Whats next, corporations suing cities, states, and the federal government for people who used public roads that in some abstract way resulted in a "loss of profit"? (sigh)

Just you wait, with this ruling it will open the floodgates for these kind of frivolous money shakedowns. In a matter of months, all the major ISP's will have pending litigation with the RIAA, MPAA, and countless corporate studio's. This in turn will push ISP's into a corner where despite any moral & principled objections they have to policing & snitching on their customer base, will do so to prevent being shaked down like Cox was.

Ironically, this whole issue will soon be a moot point. Once the TPP is ratified, ISP's legally wont have a choice anymore. ISPs are roped in as copyright enforcers with the vague requirement (Appendix Section 1) that they be given “legal incentives…to cooperate with copyright owners to deter the unauthorized storage and transmission of copyrighted materials or, in the alternative, to take other action to deter the unauthorized storage and transmission of copyright materials”. (see below)

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/final-leaked-tpp-text-all-we-feared

If you haven't already, now would be a good time to consider a VPN account that keeps no logs in a country outside of participating TPP nations. (see below)

https://torrentfreak.com/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/

This will end very poorly...

This sets a bad precedent.

Wait, is this gonna force isp's to track everything we do now?

I don't understand how this is a bad thing? If your repeatedly caught breaking the law and pirating content why is it unreasonable for the ISP to do something to stop you. If you constantly break the law in real life you go to jail for a longer and receive more probation and limitations because of it. If you constantly break the road rules your get bigger fines and risk losing your license. Unless I'm missing something its not like they are being punished for not cutting off first time offenders.

And honestly if this is a big deal to you DON'T PIRATE and you have no problems, but bitching that ISP's are expected to help stop repeat offenders is just silly. The only issue I have with copyright shit is when the somehow figure out that 1 song is worth thousands of dollars but every company and artist has a right to protect its content.

The court is possibly thinking that it's technically possible to block individuals from "pirating" on the internet (e.g. they all use bittorrent, so block all torrents). A problem with this is that the "bad guys" will just try to find some other port or protocol to share their stuff. This could lead to ISPs being overly suspicious of completely innocent traffic (e.g. spying on everyone). The good does not out weigh the bad.

I'm ok with this, Cox cable/Internet treated me like ass and I was extremely unhappy with their service.. kindly frig off Cox

TechLarry said:

Wait, is this gonna force isp's to track everything we do now?

Click to expand...

No, it will force Cox, to do what they were supposed to be doing. All the other ISPs are on their own, they are either in compliance with the law or they are not.

FndTheRver said:

The court is possibly thinking that it's technically possible to block individuals from "pirating" on the internet (e.g. they all use bittorrent, so block all torrents). A problem with this is that the "bad guys" will just try to find some other port or protocol to share their stuff. This could lead to ISPs being overly suspicious of completely innocent traffic (e.g. spying on everyone). The good does not out weigh the bad.

Click to expand...

OK, why anyone wants to read cryptic shit into this is amazing.

People were pirating shit, RightsCorp proved it by actually downloading the stuff from their computers. Cox was notified and didn't do anything even though, by law, they are supposed to. So BMG sued them for damages do to their failure to follow the law which they argued caused them damages, lost revenue. All this means is Cox is out 25M and they should probably start notifying people when they receive these notices, monitor their connections for awhile, and either forget about them if they stop or cut them off if they ignore the warnings. It doesn't mean that Cox will want to go snooping around for every unrelated thing in the world.

TechLarry said:

Wait, is this gonna force isp's to track everything we do now?

Click to expand...

In reality, virtually everything you do online is recorded by the NSA and other "interested" alphabet agencies and has been for well over a decade. The TPP and CISA (passed today) legally bring in the corporate world in sharing your data without consequence, any real oversight, and in most cases total secrecy from you that it ever happened (unless it's being presented as evidence in court). The police state is here and rapidly evolving into greater forms of all encompassing surveillance. Check out my favorite satires on this subject (see below) for a entertaining yet educational overview of this. It's only 5 mins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o66FUc61MvU

Ragenrok said:

I don't understand how this is a bad thing? If your repeatedly caught breaking the law and pirating content why is it unreasonable for the ISP to do something to stop you. If you constantly break the law in real life you go to jail for a longer and receive more probation and limitations because of it. If you constantly break the road rules your get bigger fines and risk losing your license. Unless I'm missing something its not like they are being punished for not cutting off first time offenders.

And honestly if this is a big deal to you DON'T PIRATE and you have no problems, but bitching that ISP's are expected to help stop repeat offenders is just silly. The only issue I have with copyright shit is when the somehow figure out that 1 song is worth thousands of dollars but every company and artist has a right to protect its content.

Click to expand...

Think a little harder. It doesn't matter what your view on piracy is. Cox is paying for a crime it didn't commit. This forces them to enforce punishment without due process or they themselves are liable.

To correct your road rules analogy, this would be like Ford Motor Company being sued because you used their truck to rob a bank.

Its a bad ruling

lcpiper said:

OK, why anyone wants to read cryptic shit into this is amazing.

People were pirating shit, RightsCorp proved it by actually downloading the stuff from their computers.

Click to expand...

You may want to try reading the article. Some people may have been pirating shit, others were obviously not.

From the article

Even in the Cox case, a number of plainly innocent customers were caught up in the lawsuit as BMG sought to have their information turned over as evidence in the case. Those who were able to prove they weren’t even Cox customers during the time in question were able to have themselves removed, but it still shows the extent to which some copyright holders will go to hold anyone they can responsible for infringement.

Click to expand...

That seems like a severe accuracy problem and it was admitted in the case itself.

So now, Cox will have to comply and punish plainly innocent customers or risk getting an even larger fine.

How about fining Comcast $200M for selling my phone number to a telemarketer database? 5 to 10 day, had to buy this little box that will blacklist 2K numbers. It works well but still getting new ones, everyday, every night, all the time, never stops bunch of phone sluts.

I feel like this jury did it just to "stick it" to Cox, while in reality they were "sticking it" to themselves.

lcpiper said:

OK, why anyone wants to read cryptic shit into this is amazing.

People were pirating shit, RightsCorp proved it by actually downloading the stuff from their computers. Cox was notified and didn't do anything even though, by law, they are supposed to. So BMG sued them for damages do to their failure to follow the law which they argued caused them damages, lost revenue. All this means is Cox is out 25M and they should probably start notifying people when they receive these notices, monitor their connections for awhile, and either forget about them if they stop or cut them off if they ignore the warnings. It doesn't mean that Cox will want to go snooping around for every unrelated thing in the world.

Click to expand...

Laws and precidents always have broad reaching and often unforseen consequences.

If your not reading cryptically into law and precident it tells me two things:

1. You are not a lawyer
2. You do not understand law

Ragenrok said:

I don't understand how this is a bad thing? If your repeatedly caught breaking the law and pirating content why is it unreasonable for the ISP to do something to stop you. If you constantly break the law in real life you go to jail for a longer and receive more probation and limitations because of it. If you constantly break the road rules your get bigger fines and risk losing your license. Unless I'm missing something its not like they are being punished for not cutting off first time offenders.

And honestly if this is a big deal to you DON'T PIRATE and you have no problems, but bitching that ISP's are expected to help stop repeat offenders is just silly. The only issue I have with copyright shit is when the somehow figure out that 1 song is worth thousands of dollars but every company and artist has a right to protect its content.

Click to expand...

ISP's are NOT Law Enforcement. Period.

To expand on TechLarry's comment..

What forcing an ISP, a private business with no legal authority over citizens, to take punitive action against people for criminal offenses does is remove the legal system from the process. Comcast can dictate what a pirate is and how to respond to it by this ruling. This means they could cut a persons access to the internet over watching a youtube video of unapproved copyright material. Yes this is an extreme case but it highlights exactly what this ruling exposes you to.

We have a legal system for a reason. Without putting the courts and the police in direct action and granting a private business the ability to legally project authority against criminals you will allow for a corrupted system where there are zero checks or balances.

DocFaustus said:

Think a little harder. It doesn't matter what your view on piracy is. Cox is paying for a crime it didn't commit. This forces them to enforce punishment without due process or they themselves are liable.

To correct your road rules analogy, this would be like Ford Motor Company being sued because you used their truck to rob a bank.

Its a bad ruling

Click to expand...

No its like a dealership selling cars to an organization that are using them for illegal activities, and even after having it shown to them they still sell knowing that they will be used for illegal activities because well, hey its money

TechLarry said:

ISP's are NOT Law Enforcement. Period.

Click to expand...

So? If your roommate started selling crack from your house you should do something about it not turn a blind eye because they pay the rent on time. Your not a cop but if it's happening on your property you still have a responsibility to deal with it.

Nafensoriel said:

To expand on TechLarry's comment..

What forcing an ISP, a private business with no legal authority over citizens, to take punitive action against people for criminal offenses does is remove the legal system from the process. Comcast can dictate what a pirate is and how to respond to it by this ruling. This means they could cut a persons access to the internet over watching a youtube video of unapproved copyright material. Yes this is an extreme case but it highlights exactly what this ruling exposes you to.

We have a legal system for a reason. Without putting the courts and the police in direct action and granting a private business the ability to legally project authority against criminals you will allow for a corrupted system where there are zero checks or balances.

Click to expand...

The problem with this comment is that you aren't removing the legal system, you are interfering with it. You also aren't giving anyone the ability to make up rules.

The problem is that people are looking at this as if Cox should have no part in this. However they have information that is needed by the other end. Regardless of how you feel about piracy, it is right now a crime. Companies have the right to ask you to stop giving our their content. Lets look at this in a slight different light.

Lets imagine you own an apartment building with 1000 units. One of these units is being used to sell drugs to kids. You don't know who the drug dealer is, but if you were to look at your cameras that you have on every stair landing and in the elevators you would be able to see what floor said person is on. The police come to you and you refuse to help them narrow down their search and also refuse to let them into your building. Every time the police try to do something to get this drug dealer you stop their actions. Would it be wrong for you to be arrested for interfering with a police investigation?

Under the law that is basically what is happening here. ISPs are supposed to keep records from their servers to know at least for a short period of time who had what IP address when. So for example if they get an notice that on Dec 1st at 10 am IP 1.1.1.2 did something they should be able to look at their records and at least get an idea of who might have had that IP at that time. They then email that person or mail them a notice about them being believed to have been doing something wrong. They do not give any information to the other party at that time. They only pass on the warning to the other person making them the man in the middle and the only one who knows who appears to be committing the crime. Or at the very least try they should be trying their best to. Since there is a 6 strike rule most probably wait till the 2nd notice before they actually contact the person as that means they are a repeat offender. Even then there is no promise they can actually track down who had the IP or do anything of any real use, but they have to at least try. If the ISP does not hand out the notice and do not try at all they are standing there blocking the only way that anyone has to access these people and are interfering with legal proceeding. At that point they are aiding in the crime being committed by refusing to assist in stopping it or giving the information to the legal authorities.

The people that get to say that you are pirating something is the people that own the right to it. Just like if you start selling shirts on the street corner with the GAP logo on it, they can go after you for doing so. If you open a new restaurant, call it Burger King using their menu and logo but are not actually part of the franchise they can have you shut down. The same here, if you are distributing movies, music or games that you do not own the rights to, the copy right owner can legally request that you stop distributing the content. That isn't them being above the law, it is them protecting their material using the law. Slight difference.

FndTheRver said:

The court is possibly thinking that it's technically possible to block individuals from "pirating" on the internet (e.g. they all use bittorrent, so block all torrents). A problem with this is that the "bad guys" will just try to find some other port or protocol to share their stuff. This could lead to ISPs being overly suspicious of completely innocent traffic (e.g. spying on everyone). The good does not out weigh the bad.

Click to expand...

Its been shown time and time again that people who nothing to with the "infringement" get caught up in the mess. The grandma that didn't even have a computer for example. Just in this case there were people that weren't even cox customers that were listed in the case. People are not their IP address.

Nafensoriel said:

To expand on TechLarry's comment..

What forcing an ISP, a private business with no legal authority over citizens, to take punitive action against people for criminal offenses does is remove the legal system from the process. Comcast can dictate what a pirate is and how to respond to it by this ruling. This means they could cut a persons access to the internet over watching a youtube video of unapproved copyright material. Yes this is an extreme case but it highlights exactly what this ruling exposes you to.

We have a legal system for a reason. Without putting the courts and the police in direct action and granting a private business the ability to legally project authority against criminals you will allow for a corrupted system where there are zero checks or balances.

Click to expand...

Finally somebody gets whats happening here.

I boycoted the record industry for a decade in direct response to their completely unreasonable law suits against music sharing. Too bad more people didn't join me so I quit.

Luckily the world changed in that time so podcasts, internet radios etc. started providing music that's not available from local sewage pits.. er radio stations. And wouldn't you know it, the greedy assholes are at it again now trying to kill internet radios with their completely unreasonable royalty demands.

Perhaps a decade more boycott is in order.

B00nie said:

I boycoted the record industry for a decade in direct response to their completely unreasonable law suits against music sharing. Too bad more people didn't join me so I quit

Click to expand...

They haven't made any money off me for a very long time. I don't remember the last time I bought a CD or a song.

Last time I downloaded some songs was at least 10 years ago with some free download codes from something I bought.

This works for me, since I really don't like any of the "current" music.
I ripped all the CD's I bought many years ago to MP3's, so I have all the music I need.

They. haven't really made any money from me directly... but I do listen to the radio, so I guess there's that. But I'm not a big music person, I prefer game music on top of that.

Ragenrok said:

I don't understand how this is a bad thing? If your repeatedly caught breaking the law and pirating content why is it unreasonable for the ISP to do something to stop you. If you constantly break the law in real life you go to jail for a longer and receive more probation and limitations because of it.

Click to expand...

Totally missing the point but good moral puke.
The point is the ISP is REQUIRED to do so or face to pay penalties. suddenly ISP has to be a cyber police or be punished. thats not fair to the ISP.
Nothing for this was about to protect the pirate.

Iceshot said:

Whats next, corporations suing cities, states, and the federal government for people who used public roads that in some abstract way resulted in a "loss of profit"? (sigh)

Click to expand...

Not sure if joking, but yes the TPP that our government is trying to push will allow exactly that. Foreign companies will be allowed to sue government agencies, if policies stifle profit of the company.

http://aftinet.org.au/cms/isds-sue-governments-tpp-2013

westrock2000 said:

Not sure if joking, but yes the TPP that our government is trying to push will allow exactly that. Foreign companies will be allowed to sue government agencies, if policies stifle profit of the company.

http://aftinet.org.au/cms/isds-sue-governments-tpp-2013

Click to expand...

It's satire, but this example is pretty much parity with what is going on with Cox and this lawsuit. It's ludicrous that Cox is being sued and shaked down for money like this. This case sets a legal presidence that will have far reaching consequences.

Corporations being able to sue governments (outside of our courts through a self appointed kangaroo Corporate court I might add) for stifling profits is only one in a long list of draconian egregious new laws. Without a doubt, the TPP is the WORST peice of legislation I have ever seen (thats saying alot when remembering the Patriot Act, CISA, NDAA, Monsanto Protection Act, TARP, Common Core, Citizens United ruling, and so on).

We are being fast tracked into a intentional by design dystopic future where Corporations fully usurp National Sovereignty "openly" in most countries the world over. In brutal truth, this is already for the most part a ugly inconvenient truth. Movies like the Matrix and Hunger Games are more than stories, it's a foreshadowing of a increasingly probable future if we don't collectively wake up and refuse to participate any more in this single sided draconian system and agenda. Our current system of government and financial system is corrupt to the core and has so many protections and firewalls at every level to maintain the Status Quo it's naive (to say the least) that we will ever take back control by "voting the bums out".

The Easter Bunny is not real and neither is a government that represents and is "accountable" to it's citizens. That form of government was quietly assassinated and taken over by Multinational Corporations, Elite banking cartels, and the Military Industrial Complex before most of us were born. All that exists today is a thinly veiled societal reinforced "illusion" of freedom that dissipates the moment critical thinking and unbias fact finding are applied.