UMG Recordings Advances Suit Against Another Internet Provider

A group of music companies can proceed with a copyright lawsuit against the internet service provider Altice USA Inc., which allegedly failed to terminate the accounts of customers who pirated music through BitTorrent protocols

UMG Recordings Inc., Capitol Records LLC, and other music companies had sufficiently argued that Altice contributed to the infringement by allegedly failing to act on millions of notices sent by the companies, a Texas federal judge ruled.

Citing recent music piracy cases, Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas was convinced by the music companies’ theory of contributory infringement: that knowledge of infringing ...