If you have ever downloaded anything illegally before via torrents like a movie or music, you may or may not have received an email from your ISP warning you that your IP address has been detected downloading copyrighted material. However usually this is as far as it goes as the legal stuff is typically handled by the copyright owner, like movie studios or record labels.Unfortunately these letters of warning aren’t enough for the RIAA because the organization has since filed a lawsuit against ISP Grande Communications in which they allege that the ISP did not do enough to discourage pirates, such as disconnecting them from using their internet services.
The lawsuit reads, “Defendants have been notified that their internet customers have engaged in more than one million infringements of copyrighted works over BitTorrent systems, including tens of thousands of blatant infringements by repeat infringers of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works. Despite their knowledge of repeat infringements, Defendants have permitted repeat infringers to use the Grande service to continue to infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights without consequence.”
The RIAA is also seeking statutory damages which could go up to as much as $150,000 per infringed work, actual damages, plus profits generated by the ISP as a result of the infringement. Grande could be in trouble because if you recall, there was a similar case back in 2015 involving Cox Communications, where a federal jury ruled that ISPs could be held liable for their users’ piracy.