Major Music Labels Sue Verizon for $2.5 Billion for Enabling Piracy
By Movieguide® Contributor
Verizon is facing a major anti-piracy lawsuit after three music labels allege that the internet service provider intentionally enabled piracy for years while ignoring hundreds of thousands of copyright claims.
“Verizon ignored Plaintiffs’ notices and buried its head in the sand [by] continu[ing] to provide its high-speed service to thousands of known repeat infringers so it could continue to collect millions of dollars from them,” the lawsuit claims. “Verizon knowingly contributed to, and reaped substantial profits from, massive copyright infringement committed by tens of thousands of its subscribers.”
The complaint is led by Universal, Sony and Warner along with numerous other smaller publishers representing musicians of over 17,000 songs with infringements dating back to 2020. The lawsuit is seeking the maximum penalty of $150,000 per infringement, totaling a fine of over $2.5 billion.
The labels say they submitted over 340,000 infringement notices with as many as 4,450 violations attributed to one user. Verizon, however, refused to cut service to these egregious users.
“Verizon acknowledged that it received these notices of infringement sent by Plaintiffs’ representatives,” the lawsuit said. “Yet rather than taking any steps to address its customers’ illegal use of its networking, Verizon deliberately chose to ignore Plaintiffs’ notices, willfully blinding itself to that information and prioritizing its own profits over its legal obligations.”
“Verizon has gone out of its way not to take action against subscribers engaging in repeated copyright infringement,” the lawsuit continued. “[And] failed to terminate or otherwise take any meaningful action against the accounts of repeat infringers of which it was aware.”
“It is well-established law that if a party materially assists someone it knows is engaging in copyright infringement, that party is fully liable for the infringement as if it had infringed directly,” the complaint added.
While Verizon may seem dead to rights at this point, previous lawsuits of a similar nature have ended in favor of the defendants. In 2014, a seven-year-long dispute between Viacom and YouTube over the uploading of copyrighted content ended in YouTube’s favor after the media was unable to prove culpability. More recently, a $1 billion judgment against Cox Communications was overturned after a court ruled the company did not profit from allowing its users to pirate music.
Verizon, therefore, may have a fighting chance to save face if it can follow the precedent set by these previous cases.
Movieguide® previously reported on copyright lawsuits:
Several big-name record labels are suing generative AI music-making companies Udio and Suno.
Per The Verge, “A group of record labels including the big three — Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Records — are suing two of the top names in generative AI music making, alleging the companies violated their copyright ‘en masse.’”
The lawsuits are separate with Suno being sued in Boston and Udio being sued in New York.
According to both lawsuits, the record labels have accused the two companies of using artists’ work without their consent.
RIAA chief legal officer, Ken Doroshow, said in a statement, “These are straightforward cases of copyright infringement involving unlicensed copying of sound recordings on a massive scale. Suno and Udio are attempting to hide the full scope of their infringement rather than putting their services on a sound and lawful footing.”
