The major record companies in the US last week formally responded to an appeal filed by internet service provider Grande Communications, which is very keen indeed to avoid having to pay the music industry $46.8 million after losing a copyright legal battle last year.
In their response to Grande's appeal, the majors argue that the ISP "seeks to upend decades of well-established copyright law and effectively make it impossible for plaintiffs and other copyright owners to protect against the mass infringement of music, movies, books and other works by users of online peer-to-peer file-sharing systems. No existing case law supports that result".
Grande was one of the American ISPs sued by the music industry for not doing enough to combat infringement and infringers on its networks. The labels argued that Grande failed to deal with repeat infringers among its customer base and should therefore be held liable for those customers' copyright infringement. A jury agreed and ordered Grande to pay $46.8 million in damages.
The ISP filed an appeal in September insisting that the lower court got it wrong and that net firms shouldn't be expected to cut off customers just because a copyright owner makes a claim of infringement.
It is backed by two organisations representing US internet and telecoms companies, USTelecom and CTIA, which said in an amicus brief in October that the ruling in this case could compel ISPs to "engage in wide-scale terminations to avoid facing crippling damages".
However, the music companies insist that the lower court got it right the first time around. "At trial, plaintiffs demonstrated that Grande understood [its] legal obligations, but consciously ignored them", their new legal filing says.
Instead, “Grande decided in 2010 to maximise its revenues by continuing to collect subscription fees from subscribers it knew were repeat copyright infringers and providing them with the tools necessary to continue infringing, namely Grande’s high-speed internet services".
With that in mind, they add, "this court should affirm the judgment of the district court".