Music labels sue Verizon for over $2.6 billion

Powerful record labels including UMG Recordings, Warner Music and Sony Music filed a lawsuit on Friday accusing Verizon of willfully ignoring its customers’ copyright violations for profit. Reports Music Business Worldwide,

The plaintiffs say they are entitled to up to $150,000 for each violation under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which could total up to $2.6 billion.

The lawsuit includes a list of 17,335 tracks by artists or bands including Elvis Presley, Matchbox Twenty, the Goo Goo Dolls and Brandy.Here is the list (If you want to dig deeper — it starts with Sam Cooke and ends with Wiz Khalifa.) The label says it has sent “nearly 350,000 infringement notices” to Verizon since 2020, alleging that the company has ignored people repeatedly cited for illegally sharing files because they pay more for faster, better internet service.

Verizon’s failure to take meaningful action against its infringing customers attracted customers engaged in Internet piracy to purchase Verizon’s services so that those customers could infringe on Plaintiffs’ (and others’) copyrights and avoid obtaining copyrighted materials through legitimate channels. Infringing customers were attracted to Verizon’s services both because of its lax policies regarding copyright infringement and because of the fast Internet speeds that facilitate the use of P2P protocols for those willing to pay more. Verizon promoted a safe harbor for infringement in light of its lax policies and thereby encouraged its customers to infringe. The specific infringing customers identified in Plaintiffs’ notices, including the particularly egregious infringers identified above, knew that Verizon would not terminate their accounts despite receiving multiple notices identifying them as infringers, and they remained Verizon customers so that they could continue to illegally download copyrighted works.

The suit accuses Verizon of copyright infringement, and asks the judge to award the label the maximum penalty, as well as attorney fees, for each track in their catalog.

Past copyright battles include Viacom vs. YouTubein which the latter successfully argued that it qualified for the DMCA’s “safe harbor” provision, while $1 billion verdict Against Cox Communications Was overturned On appeal, the Court held that the ISPs made no profit by ignoring music piracy.