50+ Music Companies File Copyright Suits Against ISPs Charter, Bright House

More than 50 major music companies have joined to file separate lawsuits against ISP providers Charter and Bright House for not doing enough to stop copyright infringement. Each suit could result in more than $1 billion in damages.

Universal, Sony and WMG are joined by dozens of major music publishers in both lawsuits. They are part of an ongoing slate of lawsuits against Cox and other ISPs designed to get crack down on large scale and long term infringement.

The Charter lawsuit, filed Friday in Colorado, accuses the cable company and its ISP brand Spectrum of failing to "take reasonable measures to curb customers from using its Internet services to infringe on others’ copyrights, including Plaintiffs’ copyrights — even after Charter became aware of particular customers engaging in specific, repeated acts of infringement."

The Bright House complaint was even more strongly worded.

“In reality, Bright House operated its service as an attractive tool and safe haven for infringement,” the complaint reads.  “During an 827-day period, Bright House subscriber with IP address 75.114.183.231 was identified in 340 infringement notices, sent on at least 232 separate days… rather than terminating repeat infringers – and losing subscription revenues – Bright House simply looked the other way.”