Altice ‘Secondarily Liable’ for Its Internet Customers’ Music Infringement, Say 54 Plaintiffs

Altice has knowingly contributed to, and reaped “substantial profits” from, massive copyright infringement committed by thousands of its internet subscribers, alleged 54 record labels and music publishers in a complaint Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-00576) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Marshall. Altice has been fending off similar allegations from BMG and its affiliates in the same courthouse in a case that dates to December 2022.

Altice enabled its subscribers to continue infringing the plaintiffs’ copyrights “with impunity” through the continued provision of its high-speed Internet service to “known repeat infringers,” alleged the complaint. That despite receiving tens of thousands of notices from the plaintiffs “that detailed the illegal activity of its subscribers,” it said. That’s also despite “its clear legal obligation to address the widespread, illegal downloading of copyrighted works” on its internet service, it said.

Altice’s contribution to its subscribers’ infringement “is both willful and extensive, and it renders Altice equally liable for that infringement,” said the complaint. Altice for years “deliberately refused to take reasonable measures” to prevent customers from using its internet services to infringe on others’ copyrights, including plaintiffs’ copyrights, it said. That was even after Altice “was put on notice of particular customers engaging in specific, repeated acts of infringement,” it said.

The plaintiffs’ representatives sent tens of thousands of statutory infringement notices to Altice, in addition to the millions of similar notices Altice received from other copyright holders, said the complaint. Those notices advised Altice of its subscribers’ “blatant and systematic use” of Altice’s internet service to illegally download, copy and distribute the plaintiffs’ copyrighted music through BitTorrent and other online file-sharing services, it said. Rather than working with the plaintiffs to curb this massive infringement, Altice “did nothing, choosing to prioritize its own profits over its legal obligations,” it said.

Altice has derived “an obvious and direct financial benefit” from its subscribers’ infringement, said the complaint. The unlimited ability to download and distribute the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works through Altice’s service “has served as a draw for Altice to attract, retain, and charge higher fees to subscribers,” it said.

By failing to terminate the accounts of specific recidivist infringers known to Altice, it “obtained a direct financial benefit from its subscribers’ continuing infringing activity,” said the complaint. That financial benefit included “improper revenue” that it wouldn’t have received “had it appropriately shut down those accounts,” it said: “Altice decided not to terminate infringers because it wanted to maintain the revenue generated from the infringing subscribers’ accounts.”

The infringing activity of Altice’s subscribers that’s the subject of the plaintiffs’ claims, and for which Altice is “secondarily liable,” occurred after Altice received “multiple notices of each subscriber’s infringing activity,” said the complaint. The plaintiffs seek relief for claims that accrued between December 2020 and December 2023 for infringement of works by Altice subscribers “after those particular subscribers were identified to Altice in multiple infringement notices,” it said.

In the action brought by BMG against Altice in the same courthouse, the statute of limitations bars the copyright infringement that BMG and its affiliated record labels' claim because they allege infringements “that accrued outside the three-year limitations period, including any applicable tolling of the limitations period,” said Altice’s answer Thursday (docket 2:22-cv-00471) to BMG’s Nov. 7 amended complaint. As with the new lawsuit brought Thursday by the 54 plaintiffs, BMG alleges that Altice failed to terminate subscriptions or take other meaningful action against repeat internet-subscriber infringers it knew about.

But applying the Copyright Act and its remedies to Altice’s and its customers' conduct “would violate due process,” said Altice’s answer. To the extent that BMG can establish any underlying “direct or secondary infringement,” Altice’s liability and BMG’s remedies are limited because Altice qualifies for safe harbor under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it said.