Record labels sue Charter for not kicking off music pirates

Major music labels are suing Charter Communications for not kicking pirates off its service. Late last week, Warner Bros., Sony, Universal Music Group, and several subsidiaries claimed Charter had “knowingly contributed to, and reaped substantial profits from, massive copyright infringement committed by thousands of its subscribers.” Specifically, the complaint says Charter received notices that its subscribers were pirating music through BitTorrent and other services, but it refused to terminate their accounts. A similar suit has been filed against Charter subsidiary Bright House Networks.
“Charter did not want to lose subscriber revenue by terminating accounts of infringing subscribers,” the complaint reads. “Nor did Charter want to risk the possibility that account terminations would make its service less attractive to other existing or prospective users.” As Ars Technica pointed out, it actually comes close to suggesting that Charter promoted piracy simply by advertising high download speeds — complaining that “Charter has told existing and prospective customers that its high-speed service enables subscribers to ‘download just about anything instantly,’” and “told subscribers that its Internet service ‘has the speed you need for everything you do online.’”
The suit says that “tens of thousands” of Charter subscribers were flagged for copyright infringement, and it’s asking a court for damages that include Charter’s profits from maintaining these accounts. Charter told The Verge in a statement that “we will defend against these baseless accusations.”
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