A group of major record labels has filed a new lawsuit against Charter Communications alleging that the company has failed to address its subscribers’ copyright infringement of musical works. And it’s not the first time the labels have sued Charter for its subscribers’ alleged behavior.
In a complaint filed in US District Court in Colorado July 26th, Universal Music, EMI, Sony Music, and Warner Music, along with several subsidiaries, claim that Charter, which provides internet services as Spectrum, “has insisted on doing nothing despite receiving thousands of notices that detailed the illegal activity of its subscribers, despite its clear legal obligation to address the widespread, illegal downloading of copyrighted works on its Internet services, and despite being sued previously by Plaintiffs for similar conduct.”
The same group of companies sued Charter in 2019, claiming Charter had received notices that its subscribers were using BitTorrent and other services for pirating music. Between March 24, 2013 and May 17th, 2016, Charter had “reaped substantial profits from massive copyright infringement committed by thousands of its subscribers,” the 2019 complaint states.
The new complaint covers infringement that allegedly occurred between July 26th, 2018 to the present, which the labels claim they detected as they monitored Charter’s network.
The labels claim in the complaint that they notified Charter, sending 150,000 notices of infringement, including the unique IP addresses of “flagrant and serial infringers” numbering in the “tens of thousands” on Charter’s network, but that the company turned a “blind eye” to the alleged activity.
Charter declined to comment on Saturday.
The new suit is the latest attempt by record labels to hold ISPs responsible for instances of copyright infringement by their subscribers. In 2019, a group of labels won a $1 billion verdict against Cox Communications, after a court found it was liable for infringement of more than 10,000 musical works by its subscribers.
Update August 7th, 1:23PM ET: Adds that Charter declined comment
