Comcast, Verizon and AT&T are being sued according to The Hollywood Reporter by multiple Film Production companies such as Voltage Pictures, After Productions and Ammo Entertainment, among others. The production companies are being represented by two law firms, Dovel & Luner and Culpepper IP.
Comcast, Verizon, AT&T Sued
Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T are being sued for failing to prevent movie piracy online. At the time of writing, the most recent of these filings was made on September 13 in a federal court in Pennsylvania. Voltage Pictures, After Productions, Ammo Entertainment, and a number of other firms brought the lawsuit.
The claims maintain that the internet service providers were complicit in copyright infringement committed by their clients. Plaintiffs claim that they issued hundreds of thousands of complaints regarding specific instances of infringement to Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast. For instance, they assert that they notified Comcast of the unauthorized downloading of the movie ‘I Feel Pretty’, ‘The Dallas Buyers Club’ and other movies using their services more than 100,000 times. The internet service providers are being sued for neglecting to conduct an investigation.
The latest complaint against Comcast claims that “Comcast did not take meaningful action to prevent ongoing infringements by these Comcast users.” It also notes that “Comcast failed to terminate the accounts associated with these IP addresses or otherwise take any meaningful action in response to these Notices. Comcast often failed to even forward the Notices to its internet service customers or otherwise inform them about the Notice or its contents.”
Complaints against Comcast, Verizon, AT&T
The latest complaint against Comcast claims that “Comcast did not take meaningful action to prevent ongoing infringements by these Comcast users.” It also notes that “Comcast failed to terminate the accounts associated with these IP addresses or otherwise take any meaningful action in response to these Notices. Comcast often failed to even forward the Notices to its internet service customers or otherwise inform them about the Notice or its contents.”
“Verizon did not terminate customer accounts even if it received information about a high number of repeat infringements at those customer accounts,” the complaint states. “For example, Verizon Communications Inc. has allowed hundreds of infringements to occur at certain accounts, despite receiving at least as many notices of infringement regarding those accounts. And Verizon users have reported receiving multiple infringement notices from Verizon without having their accounts terminated.”
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Services designed to get around restrictions on access to works protected by copyright are illegal, according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was passed in 1988. It shields service providers from legal responsibility.
As a result, the lawsuit claims, the internet service providers vicariously infringed on plaintiffs’ films since they had the authority to suspend or terminate the accounts of users who violate copyright laws.
The plaintiffs contend that the defendants would only be protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act if they had previously implemented mechanisms to cancel the accounts of frequent offenders of online piracy. The lawsuit asserts that because current policies are so ineffective at kicking pirates off of certain services, none of the corporations named (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T) have taken any substantial actions or developed policies to do so.
This lawsuit requests actual damages, or statutory damages, attorneys fees and costs, and for Comcast to “implement a policy that provides for the termination of internet services to accounts at which there is repeat copyright infringements.”
Onsist fights Online Piracy
One of the best ways to counter Digital Media Piracy is to enlist the help of Online Piracy agencies such as Onsist. Onsist has been battling online piracy for the last decade.
‘Stop Losing Your Revenue to Piracy’ has always been the motto of Onsist, using advanced automated tools to report and takedown illegal online videos such as popular movies or tv series, helping streamers to go back to the source of the contents.
The vision of Onsist has always been to protect brands from all over the world against online theft and piracy. Onsist wants people not to fear losing their content to pirates, counterfeiters and other digital threats.
Onsist finds and removes illegal copies of your content and protects your revenue with anti-piracy protection.
Find Infringements
Find pirated content in three ways
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Remove Them
Report and remove content when it’s found
- Send Out Notices
Illegal content is reported to the infringing sites
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Hosting providers will be notified of infringements
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Google, Bing, and other search engines will be cleaned
Report The Results
Get notified of findings and removals
- Live Statistics
Get live feedback on found and reported infringements
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Check out the status of each and every URL that’s found
- Weekly Reports
Receive weekly reports on what’s been found and removed