Record labels accuse Verizon of massive copyright infringementRecord labels accuse Verizon of massive copyright infringement

The RIAA and dozens of record labels have accused Verizon of 'deliberately turning a blind eye' to hundreds of thousands of copyright infringements by its broadband customers.

Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor

July 15, 2024

2 Min Read
Court gavel set atop a pile of money
(SOURCE: IVAN KMIT/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)

A slew of record labels have filed a suit against Verizon, accusing the telco of "deliberately turning a blind eye" to hundreds of thousands of copyright infringements by its customers.

The suit filed on July 12 (and posted here by TorrentFreak), is led by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) along with dozens of individual record labels, including Capitol Records, Asylum Records, Warner Music and UMG Recordings.

The suit claims that, since 2020, the plaintiffs sent Verizon some 340,000 copyright infringement notices pertaining to specific subscribers on Verizon's network accused of stealing sound recordings through peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent. But instead of taking action to those notices, Verizon ignored the notices and "buried its head in the sand," the suit contends.

Per the court filing, "thousands" of Verizon customers were the subject of 20 or more notices. Over 500 Verizon subs were subject to 100 or more notices, including one customer who was the subject of 4,560 infringement notices alone.

The RIAA and the record labels said they used proprietary tech from OpSec, a content protection specialist, to determine and verify that Verizon customers were using P2P software to illegally access copyrighted recordings.

"Verizon's contribution to its subscribers' infringement is both willful and extensive, and it renders Verizon equally liable for that infringement," the record labels alleged in the suit.

By turning a "blind eye to its subscribers' infringement … Verizon routinely thumbed its nose at Plaintiffs by continuing to provide its service to subscribers it knew to be serially infringing Plaintiffs' copyrighted sound recordings," the filing continued. "In reality, Verizon operated its service as an attractive tool and safe haven for infringement."

The record labels also accuse Verizon of running afoul of its own policies that prohibit customers from using its network for copyright infringement activities.

The suit likewise describes Verizon's "Anti-Piracy Cooperation Program" as having "such onerous conditions to participation that the program is rendered a nullity." The program, the labels allege, require participants to "pay burdensome fees" for processes like IP address lookups and notice forwarding.

Verizon has been asked for comment on the lawsuit, which accuses the telco of both contributory and vicarious infringement.

The record labels are seeking unspecified damages. TorrentFreak, a site that specializes on the copyright infringement sector, reports that this could lead to maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per copyright work infringed on the first count (contributory infringement) and a maximum of $150,000 per infringed work for the second count (vicarious infringement).

Given recent history, the suit against Verizon is far from a slam dunk. Cox Communications, a cable operator that faced a similar copyright infringement lawsuit from the record labels, recently convinced an appeals court to overturn the $1 billion jury verdict that was originally handed down in 2019.

As one of the nation's top high-speed Internet service providers, Verizon ended Q1 2024 with about 9.23 million home broadband customers, including 7.22 million wireline broadband subs and 2.07 million residential fixed wireless access (FWA) customers.

About the Author

Jeff Baumgartner

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Jeff Baumgartner is a Senior Editor for Light Reading and is responsible for the day-to-day news coverage and analysis of the cable and video sectors. Follow him on X and LinkedIn.

Baumgartner also served as Site Editor for Light Reading Cable from 2007-2013. In between his two stints at Light Reading, he led tech coverage for Multichannel News and was a regular contributor to Broadcasting + Cable. Baumgartner was named to the 2018 class of the Cable TV Pioneers.

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