When thousands of people illegally download books, music, or films, and their internet service provider knows about it but keeps collecting monthly fees from the pirates anyway, should the company face consequences? That’s the question at the heart of Cox […]
I mean… why do you think new speed bumps and traffic signals get added to neighborhoods? Same with adjusted speed limits.
That IS the engineers (well, the local government that employs them) being held accountable for dangerous roads.
For this? I have very serious concerns for all the obvious reasons. But ISPs 100% know what we are doing. Like… there is a reason that comcast et al basically have like a 1 gig upload on a 100 gig down connection. Same with bandwidth caps… which “worked” up until everyone was teleconferencing from home and watching 4k netflix.
And… considering comcast et al love to sell bundles for “unlimited bandwidth” or “symmetrical upload”… they are very much profiting off of piracy.
there is a reason that comcast et al basically have like a 1 gig upload on a 100 gig down connection.
Because they’re limited on channels and allocate more of them for increased download speed because most people upload very little data comparatively.
The bandwidth cap is just a pure money grab as they removed the caps during covid when everyone was video calling and sitting around online at home and ‘somehow’ their network handled it just fine.
The local government is not banning repeat speeders from using the roads though. The courts might do that by revoking driver’s licenses, but the engineers and local governments do not have the authority, and should not have the authority to do so.
In the same way, internet providers should not be the one’s who decide that a given user should not have access. That should remain the decision of the courts. If a copyright holder can show the courts that a user should be denied access to the internet, the courts can order the individual cut off. That’s where the power should remain.
The local government is not banning repeat speeders from using the roads though.
Uhm… they do. Fuck up badly enough and your license is taken away. Does that stop people from driving? Of course not. But the penalties for getting caught go up really fast (if you aren’t a cishet white “good old boy”).
And while it is more associated with NIMBYism than safety, there are a few neighborhoods around the country where “no through traffic” is enforced very heavily. Usually there is no actual fine, but you get a rentacop who will make your life hell for the 30 minutes they spend “running your plates” and so forth.
This is the Author’s Guild asking for internet providers to be able to block people without a court order. They want to be able to contact a provider and say, “This user downloaded a book without paying for it so you have to cut off their internet.” The provider should not be allowed to do that unless the courts order them to do so.
The linked article clearly shows this.
As our brief explains, when millions of people can copy and share creative works “quickly, anonymously, and across borders,” going after individual infringers one by one is nearly impossible. The only practical way to stop large-scale piracy is to hold accountable for the internet companies that provide the infrastructure—especially when those companies know exactly what’s happening and choose to profit from it anyway.
They can already go after individual infringers and web sites that aid in piracy. Now they want to be able to order providers to cut off users without the bother of going to court over it.
Uhm… they do. Fuck up badly enough and your license is taken away.
Yeah, by the courts. Fuck up badly enough, and you can be taken to court and a judge will take away your license. It’s not taken away by the local government. What the Author’s Guild wants is equivalent to requiring communities to take away the rights of some drivers to use the roads without bothering to take drivers to court.
This is the Author’s Guild asking for internet providers to be able to block people without a court order.
Uhm…
Authors Guild Asks Supreme Court
That’s the question at the heart of Cox Communications v. Sony, a case the Authors Guild—joined by Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers of America, the Songwriters Guild of America, Novelists Inc., the Dramatists Guild of America, and the Society of Composers and Lyricists—weighed in on by filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on October 22, 2025.
This is asking for the court to decide in their favor.
As for
They can already go after individual infringers and web sites that aid in piracy. Now they want to be able to order providers to cut off users without the bother of going to court over it.
ISPs have been doing that for decades. That is where data caps came from with the ISPs tending to throttle the hell out of you if you downloaded too much in a single month or they thought you were running a website without paying for business internet. Back in the day, you just had to call and ask why your internet was so slow (for the fifth time that year…) and they would un-cap, but that eventually turned into an official system where they charge an arm and a leg for going over 1 TB or whatever nonsense.
ISPs are already doing whatever they want without court orders. They just do so in a way that lets them profit off the pirates (if there isn’t enough competition to prevent them from doing so).
I’ll also just add on: We very much do not want the ruling to be that ISPs have to document everything you do and collect evidence so that the rights holders can sue you. It will end very very badly. Because that won’t be the current model where if you get caught you get a letter and stop.
They want to be able to sue ISPs who fail to take block people they believe are pirates. Cox did not do that. They told Cox that these people are pirates and Cox didn’t block them. Do you really want your ISP to be able to cut you off just because some other company claims you are using the service to pirate content? I want them to have to go to court and prove a crime was committed before their ISP is required to block them.
Right now, these very publishers can file copyright claims against people on youtube and other sites for infringement. Those claims are not evaluated by youtube. The content is just removed. No proof. No court order. If SCOTUS sides with the guild here, then those same companies will be able to have your internet cut off just by telling your ISP that your IP address was used to pirate their material.
Frankly, I would like a court to be involved before what is now a vital utility is cut off rather than letting book, movie, and music publishers decide who should be cut off with no review.
No, that would be if they tried to assign liability to Bell Labs. ISPs have traffic logs and are assigning IP addresses to pirates. I’d say it’s closer to holding Hertz accountable when people who rented cars break the speed limit. Still a terrible idea though.
But I’m concerned how they can request this with a straight face, since we’ve seen wholesale abuse of the DMCA since its inception. Ask anybody who has a YouTube channel with more than 5k subscribers about the false reports they’ve received from companies claiming to own someone else’s music. People are going to have their access cut off based on fake reports.
ISPs route data packets between IP addresses; they don’t get to see the content of what I send/receive (it’s encrypted), and they don’t get domain info without deep packet inspection, because I don’t use their DNS servers.
It’s more like sometimes the city will put up speed cameras and ALPRs — but does that make them responsible for speeders?
You have a point about the DMCA though; I’ve had videos monetized by a third party because of music I wrote and performed myself — turned out, the company was stealing MY music and I got dinged for it.
To be clear, I’m not saying it’s a good argument. OP just grossly mischaracterized it.
The main issue with this is that it would either
A. Be massively open to abuse in the same way that YouTube is now, but would come with greater penalties in that you can lose Internet access. Or
B. Force your ISP to do a copyright analysis every time they receive a report.
Every illegally downloaded book is a lost sale
This is straight out of 2007. What an awful position to take.
And that’s fucking wild about someone fighting you over your own music. The DMCA is a fucking joke.
You can’t get more legal than obtaining content directly from the rights holder. It’s more likely that the rights holder is leeching and recording the IP of the seeders.
So, the one with the right to share the thing, is sharing it themselves.
I’d say that makes it the correct source to download.
Even better than the DRM’d sources that says you only have limited access.
I’m guessing it wouldn’t be a valid legal argument, but I liked the thought experiment of claiming that it can’t be piracy if the rights holder is intentionally publicly sharing the content. Like trying to charge trick-or-treaters for theft when they took candy out of the bowl you left out with a “Free!” sign attached.
There’s no such thing as entrapment in the world of copyright, unfortunately.
That said, something kinda similar did happen in the Viacom v. YouTube case. It’s been over a decade since I read it so forgive me, but I think YouTube discovered that Viacom themselves had been uploading bits of The Simpsons, and I believe sometimes processing them to look like amateur clips because they believed that the exposure helped them in the long run.
usually, they don’t actively seed, they are just part of the swarm, and request content from you. And if that content is part of e.g.their movie, they get you for distributing the movie.
This is equivalent to asking the road construction workers and engineers to be held accountable for those that break the speed limit
I mean… why do you think new speed bumps and traffic signals get added to neighborhoods? Same with adjusted speed limits.
That IS the engineers (well, the local government that employs them) being held accountable for dangerous roads.
For this? I have very serious concerns for all the obvious reasons. But ISPs 100% know what we are doing. Like… there is a reason that comcast et al basically have like a 1 gig upload on a 100 gig down connection. Same with bandwidth caps… which “worked” up until everyone was teleconferencing from home and watching 4k netflix.
And… considering comcast et al love to sell bundles for “unlimited bandwidth” or “symmetrical upload”… they are very much profiting off of piracy.
Because they’re limited on channels and allocate more of them for increased download speed because most people upload very little data comparatively.
The bandwidth cap is just a pure money grab as they removed the caps during covid when everyone was video calling and sitting around online at home and ‘somehow’ their network handled it just fine.
None of this has anything to do with piracy.
The local government is not banning repeat speeders from using the roads though. The courts might do that by revoking driver’s licenses, but the engineers and local governments do not have the authority, and should not have the authority to do so.
In the same way, internet providers should not be the one’s who decide that a given user should not have access. That should remain the decision of the courts. If a copyright holder can show the courts that a user should be denied access to the internet, the courts can order the individual cut off. That’s where the power should remain.
Uhm… they do. Fuck up badly enough and your license is taken away. Does that stop people from driving? Of course not. But the penalties for getting caught go up really fast (if you aren’t a cishet white “good old boy”).
And while it is more associated with NIMBYism than safety, there are a few neighborhoods around the country where “no through traffic” is enforced very heavily. Usually there is no actual fine, but you get a rentacop who will make your life hell for the 30 minutes they spend “running your plates” and so forth.
Uhm… what do you think this is?
This is the Author’s Guild asking for internet providers to be able to block people without a court order. They want to be able to contact a provider and say, “This user downloaded a book without paying for it so you have to cut off their internet.” The provider should not be allowed to do that unless the courts order them to do so.
The linked article clearly shows this.
They can already go after individual infringers and web sites that aid in piracy. Now they want to be able to order providers to cut off users without the bother of going to court over it.
Yeah, by the courts. Fuck up badly enough, and you can be taken to court and a judge will take away your license. It’s not taken away by the local government. What the Author’s Guild wants is equivalent to requiring communities to take away the rights of some drivers to use the roads without bothering to take drivers to court.
Uhm…
This is asking for the court to decide in their favor.
As for
ISPs have been doing that for decades. That is where data caps came from with the ISPs tending to throttle the hell out of you if you downloaded too much in a single month or they thought you were running a website without paying for business internet. Back in the day, you just had to call and ask why your internet was so slow (for the fifth time that year…) and they would un-cap, but that eventually turned into an official system where they charge an arm and a leg for going over 1 TB or whatever nonsense.
ISPs are already doing whatever they want without court orders. They just do so in a way that lets them profit off the pirates (if there isn’t enough competition to prevent them from doing so).
I’ll also just add on: We very much do not want the ruling to be that ISPs have to document everything you do and collect evidence so that the rights holders can sue you. It will end very very badly. Because that won’t be the current model where if you get caught you get a letter and stop.
They want to be able to sue ISPs who fail to take block people they believe are pirates. Cox did not do that. They told Cox that these people are pirates and Cox didn’t block them. Do you really want your ISP to be able to cut you off just because some other company claims you are using the service to pirate content? I want them to have to go to court and prove a crime was committed before their ISP is required to block them.
Right now, these very publishers can file copyright claims against people on youtube and other sites for infringement. Those claims are not evaluated by youtube. The content is just removed. No proof. No court order. If SCOTUS sides with the guild here, then those same companies will be able to have your internet cut off just by telling your ISP that your IP address was used to pirate their material.
Frankly, I would like a court to be involved before what is now a vital utility is cut off rather than letting book, movie, and music publishers decide who should be cut off with no review.
No, that would be if they tried to assign liability to Bell Labs. ISPs have traffic logs and are assigning IP addresses to pirates. I’d say it’s closer to holding Hertz accountable when people who rented cars break the speed limit. Still a terrible idea though.
But I’m concerned how they can request this with a straight face, since we’ve seen wholesale abuse of the DMCA since its inception. Ask anybody who has a YouTube channel with more than 5k subscribers about the false reports they’ve received from companies claiming to own someone else’s music. People are going to have their access cut off based on fake reports.
ISPs route data packets between IP addresses; they don’t get to see the content of what I send/receive (it’s encrypted), and they don’t get domain info without deep packet inspection, because I don’t use their DNS servers.
It’s more like sometimes the city will put up speed cameras and ALPRs — but does that make them responsible for speeders?
You have a point about the DMCA though; I’ve had videos monetized by a third party because of music I wrote and performed myself — turned out, the company was stealing MY music and I got dinged for it.
To be clear, I’m not saying it’s a good argument. OP just grossly mischaracterized it.
The main issue with this is that it would either A. Be massively open to abuse in the same way that YouTube is now, but would come with greater penalties in that you can lose Internet access. Or B. Force your ISP to do a copyright analysis every time they receive a report.
This is straight out of 2007. What an awful position to take.
And that’s fucking wild about someone fighting you over your own music. The DMCA is a fucking joke.
Then how do they know what movie I’m torrenting if my VPN is not on?
The rights holder is seeding and records your IP address, then sends a C&D to your ISP, who then notify you about it.
You can’t get more legal than obtaining content directly from the rights holder. It’s more likely that the rights holder is leeching and recording the IP of the seeders.
So, the one with the right to share the thing, is sharing it themselves.
I’d say that makes it the correct source to download. Even better than the DRM’d sources that says you only have limited access.
I’m guessing it wouldn’t be a valid legal argument, but I liked the thought experiment of claiming that it can’t be piracy if the rights holder is intentionally publicly sharing the content. Like trying to charge trick-or-treaters for theft when they took candy out of the bowl you left out with a “Free!” sign attached.
There’s no such thing as entrapment in the world of copyright, unfortunately.
That said, something kinda similar did happen in the Viacom v. YouTube case. It’s been over a decade since I read it so forgive me, but I think YouTube discovered that Viacom themselves had been uploading bits of The Simpsons, and I believe sometimes processing them to look like amateur clips because they believed that the exposure helped them in the long run.
usually, they don’t actively seed, they are just part of the swarm, and request content from you. And if that content is part of e.g.their movie, they get you for distributing the movie.