Filmmakers Target Verizon, AT&T, & Comcast in Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
A group of filmmakers is targeting some of the world’s largest Internet Providers for their role in alleged copyright infringement.
As first reported by TorrentFreak, Voltage Pictures has filed lawsuits against Verizon, AT&T, and now Comcast for what they feel is contributory copyright infringement.
Voltage Pictures is behind popular titles including The Bird Catcher, Dallas Buyers Club, and Room 203, among others.
The company accuses the service providers of failing to terminate subscribers that have been repeatedly flagged for copyright violations.
In the lawsuit against Comcast, Voltage claims the media company failed to take action against those who download illegal content via torrent sites.
This is the same stance taken by Voltage in their lawsuits against Verizon and AT&T as well.
All 3 companies have policies that state multiple infringing violations will result in termination of service.
However, the plaintiffs feel that Comcast as well as other service providers don’t hold to these policies for fear of losing revenue.
Comcast can stop providing internet services to a customer at any time. It can stop providing internet services to customer accounts that repeatedly use its services for piracy. And Comcast doesn’t have to find these repeat offenders itself — copyright holders like Voltage already do that for Comcast, by sending copyright infringement notices. But Comcast does not take this simple step…
the lawsuit expresses.
Voltage and its affiliates—the producer of movies like Dallas Buyers Club and I Feel Pretty—have sent Comcast more than three hundred thousand infringement notices. In the last few years alone, Comcast users have pirated Voltage’s movies over a million times.
It goes on to state that oftentimes, Comcast fails to even forward notices regarding infringement notices to the customers in violation.
The complaint provides examples of cases in which various users were flagged hundreds of times without having their service terminated.
One IP Address was reported 782 times, another 626 times, and multiple more with over 370 notices pertaining to copyright infringement.
Example of Copyright Infringement Notice
The lawsuit also addresses the company’s policy on terminating customers who infringe repeatedly.
Comcast only counted the DMCA notifications regarding a customer account in each month, rather than counting total DMCA notifications. Under this policy, Comcast did not terminate an account that had a very high number of infringements over several months, but not in any one month,
You can read the entire complaint against Comcast using the link below.
Voltage Holdings LLC vs Comcast Cable Communications
Because of the inability to take action against infringing customers, Voltage alleges the plaintiffs are liable for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement.
The lawsuit also demands service providers block access to various streaming sites noted in the USTR’s Notorious Foreign Markets report.
We saw the same demand from the filmmakers in their lawsuits against both Verizon and AT&T which you can find below.
Voltage Holdings LLC vs Verizon Communications Inc.
Voltage Holdings LLC vs AT&T Inc.
We want to know what you think of the latest suing of Internet Service Providers for failing to terminate repeat infringers.
Let us know in the comments below!
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