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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday February 21 2017, @01:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the ouch-that-hurts dept.

A federal judge has ordered (PDF) Cox Communications to pay a bruising $8 million in legal fees to BMG Rights Management after the ISP lost a landmark case over Internet piracy.

The legal case began in 2014, when music publishers BMG and Round Hill Music took the long-threatened step of actually suing a major Internet provider for its users' infringement, saying that Cox didn't do enough to stop the piracy. BMG and Round Hill were both clients of Rightscorp, an anti-piracy outfit that produces millions of e-mail notices to consumers alleged to have infringed its clients' copyrights by using BitTorrent software. Rightscorp warns ISPs that if they don't forward the notices to subscribers, they're risking a massive lawsuit.

Turns out, in this case, the threat was real. After a year of litigation, the case went to trial in December 2015. Before the trial, the judge had already ruled that Cox unlawfully blew off key provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and so wasn't protected by its "safe harbor" against litigation. The jury found against Cox and ordered the cable company to pay $25 million. That result is now on appeal, but in the meantime, US District Judge Liam O'Grady considered various post-trial motions, including one in which BMG requested legal fees.

O'Grady chose to award BMG $8.38 million in attorneys' fees, which is 80 percent of what the company asked for. BMG's motion for "nontaxable expenses" like travel expenses and expert witness fees, which asked for nearly $3 million, was denied. BMG's request for court costs such as transcripts, copies, and filing fees was granted, with the judge finally arriving at $146,790.76 after making various deductions.

Source:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/cox-must-pay-8m-in-fees-on-top-of-25m-jury-verdict-for-violating-dmca/


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Tuesday February 21 2017, @02:05AM

    by Snotnose (1623) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @02:05AM (#469541)

    Big company gets slammed with millions. If you get arrested and charged with something you didn't do it's gonna run 5 figures. Most people can't afford that, they take a plea deal even though they did nothing wrong. Someone does you wrong, it's gonna take you 5-6 figures to pursue it. If you lose you could also be on the hook for the other side's legal fees.

    The price of accessing the justice system in the USA has flat out been a disgrace for years, yet I don't hear anyone calling them out on it.

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    • (Score: 2) by Some call me Tim on Tuesday February 21 2017, @02:47AM

      by Some call me Tim (5819) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @02:47AM (#469548)

      And, since all parties involved are cox, there really isn't any one to root for.

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      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @04:04AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @04:04AM (#469567)

        Cox should get a fair shake, shouldn't they?

        • (Score: 4, Funny) by Bogsnoticus on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:41AM

          by Bogsnoticus (3982) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:41AM (#469587)

          But only 3 shakes, then it goes to the FCC for indecency.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by gidds on Wednesday February 22 2017, @01:41PM

      by gidds (589) on Wednesday February 22 2017, @01:41PM (#470147)

      If you lose you could also be on the hook for the other side's legal fees.

      The flip side of that, though, is that if you win, you may not have to pay any legal costs.

      Which seems a good thing to me!  Of course, no court is infallible; but this is fairer as long as the result is just more than half the time.  (And if not, then you have bigger problems than who gets awarded the legal costs!)

      If each side is expected to pay their own legal costs, then there's a huge incentive for the defendant to settle — losing both reputation and cash, even if innocent.  Whereas if the loser pays all costs, then an innocent defendant has much less incentive to settle, knowing that if they prevail, they won't have to pay anything.

      Similarly, a loser-pays scheme discourages people from pressing baseless lawsuits.

      Here in the UK (and in fact in almost every Western democracy other than the US), loser-pays is standard (though I think at judge's discretion).  In fact, it's commonly called the English rule [wikipedia.org].

      I'm no legal expert, but from what you see in the popular media, the American system doesn't seem noticeably fairer...

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 21 2017, @03:44AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 21 2017, @03:44AM (#469560) Journal

    Where have I heard that name before?

    http://www.mintpressnews.com/judge-rules-isps-not-obligated-reveal-customers-use-online-file-sharing-services/201896/ [mintpressnews.com]

    A federal court in Georgia has quashed a broad DMCA subpoena which required local Internet provider CBeyond to reveal the identities of alleged BitTorrent pirates. The magistrate judge ruled that ISPs don't have to hand over personal information as they are not storing any infringing material themselves.

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/small-isp-stands-up-to-rightscorps-piracy-fishing-expedition-and-wins/ [arstechnica.com]

    Small ISP stands up to Rightscorp’s “piracy fishing expedition” and wins
    A Rightscorp DMCA subpoena, asking for 71 subscriber identities, is thrown out.

    “Our first order of business when anyone requests access to a customer’s private information is to refuse, absent a valid subpoena or court order, which we then scrutinize as we did with Rightscorp’s illegal subpoena in this matter,” said Christopher Bunce, Senior VP and GC for Birch, in a press statement about the matter sent out today. "Rightscorp’s attempt to gain access to our customers’ data was in essence a piracy fishing expedition."

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:56AM (#469606)

    Oh, gawd, how I wish some judge would tell these "rightsholders" that in exchange for giving them a favorable judgement in their piracy cases, by granting them their rights to keep the whole thing locked up, the "rightsholder" assumes FULL responsibility for mayhem caused by their stuff, including wasting their customer's time with unskippable ads or demands to agree to yet more crap.

    I would still hold the author harmless, as the author is likely required to put the junk in by the guy hiring him. Been there, done that, hated it so much I quit.

    Disagreement with the terms of EULAs should be grounds for complete money-back, despite the package being opened and a software installation attempt.

    We keep trying to tell the industry that their product is inferior by choosing another. Even though we have to jump through extra hoops to get it. But they won't listen. All they can seem to hear is another moneymaking opportunity if they will burden their customer with yet another business moneymaker. There comes a time when people get fed up with being manipulated so much and start revolting. In this case, its piracy. Mutiny against the Ad and the Demand for Compliance with Additional Crap.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by bziman on Tuesday February 21 2017, @02:48PM

    by bziman (3577) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @02:48PM (#469687)

    When I lived in Northern Virginia, I had Cox as my ISP for almost twenty years, and I never once had to call and negotiate my rates or service, like I do now. They advertised a speed and a price and that's what it was. Well, not even... the speeds were consistently faster than advertised, and every few years they would increase the speeds on all of the plans... and a couple of times they cut prices. I think I started at $50 a month for 5 Mbps, and when I finally moved away, I was getting 50 Mbps for like $35, on the same plan I started with. Oh and they didn't bend over for the MAFIAA. I had really hoped this case would go the other way. If big conglomerates like Verizon and Comcast win, we all lose.

  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday February 22 2017, @05:45AM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Wednesday February 22 2017, @05:45AM (#470013) Homepage

    Aren't ISPs suppose to be neutral content carriers? How the hell does the DMCA apply to them? Should ISPs also be responsible for not terminating repeat terrorism offenders? Any civil dispute (and IP infringement should be considered a civil dispute) should involve only the end parties, this is akin to shooting the messenger.

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  • (Score: 2) by Murdoc on Wednesday February 22 2017, @08:38AM

    by Murdoc (2518) on Wednesday February 22 2017, @08:38AM (#470059) Homepage

    The jury found against Cox

    The jury? Corporations get jury trials? Is it a "jury of their peers", like other corporations or something? How does this work?