BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music are suing Cox Communications which provides Internet services to 4 million households. In the lawsuit, which could have wide ranging implications, the publishers claim that Cox does not do enough to identify and punish offenders. If the charges are proven, Cox could be responsible for thousands of unauthorized downloads by its customers. Further, other ISPs would likely take more aggressive action to avoid similar fines.
According to lawyers for BMG, "Today, BitTorrent systems are like the old P2P systems on steroids. Despite its published policy to the contrary, Cox's actual policy is to refuse to suspend, terminate, or otherwise penalize subscriber accounts that repeatedly commit copyright infringement through its network in any meaningful numbers."
Cox has identified “repeat infringement by its subscribers,” according to the lawsuit, but does not terminate their accounts because “it would cause Cox to lose revenue.”
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