Record Labels Sue Verizon for Facilitating Online Piracy

NEW YORK—Major record labels representing a large swath of the music recording industry filed a lawsuit last week against Verizon and its affiliated companies, alleging the telecommunications company facilitated online content piracy that cost billions of dollars in violations, reports The Hollywood Reporter. The lawsuit could significantly impact intellectual property and content piracy case law for years.  As the adult entertainment industry is still plagued by an ongoing crisis of intellectual property theft and content piracy, this lawsuit is applicable to adult stakeholders in various ways. For example, some of the most popular adult tube websites in the world, like XNXX, remain rampant with content piracy that's difficult to combat. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, a plaintiff class of firms and subsidiaries tied to the three largest music conglomerates—Universal, Sony and Warner—sued Verizon Communications Inc., the world's second-largest telecommunications company, for a whopping $2.6 billion. Other companies named as defendants include Verizon's services subsidiary and the Verizon Wireless business currently operated by Cellco Patnership. The plaintiffs in the case allege that Verizon continues to infringe on their copyrights and intellectual property by not expelling hundreds of thousands of repeat infringers of laws, like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), which criminalizes services intended to circumvent measures to control access to copyrighted material. Service providers are protected from some liability, but only when companies boot repeat infringers of the law. The plaintiffs allege that over 340,000 DMCA infringement notices have been sent to Verizon. And while thousands of Verizon subscribers were subject to at least 20 notices, and more than 500 were subject to at least 100 notices, infringers did not have their accounts terminated, explains the complaint. "As a direct and proximate result of Verizon’s willful infringement of plaintiffs’ copyrights and other exclusive rights, plaintiffs are entitled to statutory damages," reads the lawsuit, noting that the amount to which they're entitled is up to $150,000 per each infringed work for over 17,000 infringements.  The plaintiffs allege that Verizon continues to profit from content piracy and the actions of users who use their broadband and mobile networks to violate the DMCA. "At all relevant times, Verizon has had a financial interest in and derived direct financial benefit from the infringing use of its network. Verizon has derived an obvious and direct financial benefit from its customers’ infringement," explains the federal lawsuit. "Verizon is vicariously liable for the unlawful reproduction and distribution of plaintiffs’ works."