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Settlement with US ISP Earthlink might inform next copyright lawsuit from film producer group
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 7 October 2022
The consortium of independent US film producers that has been busy suing a plethora of internet companies for not doing enough to tackle copyright infringement on their networks has reached a settlement with another American internet service provider, this time Earthlink. Though it’s the reference to other bigger internet firms in that settlement that’s more interesting.
The movie makers began their litigation in the wake of the US music industry’s successes in court in holding ISP Cox Communications liable for its users’ copyright infringement.
Internet companies usually claim safe harbour protection when their customers use their networks and servers to access or share unlicensed content, which means they can’t be held liable for that copyright infringement. However, to qualify for that protection, net firms need systems in place for dealing with infringement and infringers if and when they are made aware of such activity and users by copyright owners.
BMG and then the three major record companies showed in court that Cox only paid lip service to its policies regarding repeat infringers, and as such it lost safe harbour protection, resulting – in the major label case – in a billion dollar damages bill.
In their subsequent litigation, the film producers have gone after a wider range of internet businesses than the record companies. And, in the settlements they have negotiated along the way, they’ve also pressured the targeted net firms to agree to adopt certain anti-piracy measures, including – sometimes – web-blocking, which hasn’t generally been available to copyright owners in the US to date.
Last month they filed new lawsuits targeting AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. Which was interesting because – unlike Cox – those ISPs all previously collaborated in an anti-piracy programme endorsed by the music and movie industries call the Copyright Alert System. So it seemed likely that the net firms targeted in that round of litigation would all argue that their past record shows that they take copyright protection seriously.
With that in mind, that particular legal battle would have been interesting to watch. Except those lawsuits were then quickly dismissed by the film producers, albeit without prejudice, meaning the movie makers can still re-file that legal action at a later date.
Which brings us to the settlement with Earthlink. According to Torrentfreak, as part of that settlement, Earthlink has agreed to request that its wholesale providers block customers from accessing the piracy site YTS. That is referring to the other internet companies who actually power some of the services that Earthlink sells, which includes AT&T.
Given that lawyers working for the film producers have in the past used settlements from one dispute to inform and influence the next, Torrentfreak speculates that the Earthlink settlement could impact on any revised lawsuits against AT&T et al that might be filed in the future. Especially if Earthlink formally requests the YTS web-block and AT&T refuses to comply.
That theory is given extra credibility by the fact the Earthlink deal was actually initially agreed around the same time the lawsuits against AT&T, Verizon and Comcast were voluntary dismissed. So, we will watch with interest to see what the next step might be.
