Last month, US District Court judge Liam O’Grady dropped the bomb on Cox Communications by stripping the ISP of critical DMCA protections. This week, he’s laying the groundwork for a potentially disastrous level of liability and damages, not just for Cox, but the entire class of US-based ISPs.
According to an extensive, 71-page court decision now issued, Cox Communications has not only been stripped of its Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor, they are also now subject to legal action from potentially thousands of content owners (full decision here). This could represent the beginning of a pile-on, with various underwriters at Lloyds of London already attempting to remove their liability protection insurance based on Cox’s bad behavior.
The reason is that Cox was not only aware of egregious, ‘repeat infringers,’ they knowingly constructed policies to keep them on board as active, high-paying broadband customers. “Cox employees followed an unwritten policy put in place by senior members of Cox’s abuse group, by which accounts used to repeatedly infringe copyrights would be nominally terminated, only to be reactivated upon request,” O’Grady noted.
“Once these accounts were reactivated, customers were given clean slates, meaning the next notice of infringement Cox received linked to those accounts would be considered the first in Cox’s graduate response procedure.”
“DMCA = reactivate”
Indeed, dirty emails between Cox executives now reveal that monstrous amounts of piracy were not only tolerated, they were facilitated by mild wrist-slaps. The following smoking gun, for example, was emailed from a Cox Communications executive overseeing compliance:
“After termination of DMCA, if you do suspend someone for another DMCA violation, you are not wrong. However, if the customer has a cox.net email we would like to start the warning cycle over, hold for more, etc. A clean slate if you will. This way, we can collect a few extra weeks of payments for their account. ;-)”
Other correspondence reaffirmed the attitude as systemic within the company. When asked about whether a repeat infringer should be reconnected, the executive responded with this: “It is fine. We need the customers.”
Other dirty snippets included “DMCA = reactivate,” followed by “You can make him wait a day or so if you want. ;-).”
In another episode, a senior executive at Cox Communications argued for maintaining the account of a high-paying, clearly-repeating infringer. “This customer will likely fail again, but let’s give him one more change [sic],” the email stated. “[H]e pays 317.63 a month.”
“Download 100 tunes in 3 seconds, an HD movie in under a minute and more.”
That blatant level of disregard for copyright was company-wide, according to O’Grady’s assessment. And it now sets the stage for a very difficult trial against plaintiffs BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music, both publishers that employed infringement detection and notification service Rightscorp to alert Cox to hundreds of thousands of violations.
Those alerts from Rightscorp, a DMN partner, were routinely ignored by Cox. As a result, Cox is not only subject to massive infringement liability from BMG and Round Hill, they are also vulnerable to lawsuits from potentially every other rights owner affected by Cox’s illegal behavior.
The unfavorable judgment comes at an inopportune time for Cox. On Thursday, the company officially announced its rollout of ‘Gigablast,’ an ultra-fast, gigabit service that delivers more than 1,000 megabits of data per second. Of course, that comes at a premium: Gigablast plans start at a hefty $99.99 per month. “Cox has invested $1.33 billion in our network in Virginia in the last ten years to meet the growing demands of our customers,” enthused Cox Virginia Senior Vice President and Region Manager J.D. Myers, II.
“We are committed to keeping our residential and businesses customers in Northern Virginia connected to the things they care about most, today and in the years to come.”
But despite intensified court scrutiny on Cox’s bad behavior over copyrights, Gigablast seems to be courting the high-paying, downloading infringer. Across both video and audio, most of the legitimate market is shifting away from downloads and more towards streaming, with players like Spotify, Pandora, and Netflix grabbing a bigger chunk of the action. All of that creates less need for download-intensive bandwidth, yet that’s exactly what Cox is pitching to prospective clients. “Cox is unleashing Internet so powerful it will change how you connect with everything. It’s the technology of tomorrow at 100x the speed of today,” a Gigabit promotion proclaims.
“Download 100 tunes in 3 seconds, an HD movie in under a minute and more.”
This isn’t an isolated issue, with other mega-ISPs like AT&T subtly courting infringing customers on the benefits of ultra-fast broadband speeds. Last year, AT&T initiated an aggressive rollout of its fiber-based U-verse with ‘GigaPower’ connections, with roughly 100 major metropolitan areas on the short list. AT&T’s advertising campaign touted blazingly-fast download speeds: 1 second for 25 songs, 3 seconds to ‘Download your favorite TV show,’ and 36 seconds to ‘Download an online HD movie,’ all at a time when legal, paid downloads are decreasing in favor of streaming platforms like Netflix, HBO Go, Pandora, and YouTube.
All of that suggests a strong customer group for download-intensive piracy, which typically involves heavy BitTorrent-based downloading (and seeding to other torrenters). Indeed, despite endless statements to the contrary from streaming-focused companies like Spotify and SoundCloud, download-based torrenting and piracy remains massive (and arguably, increasing). “What we do know for sure is that even with 60 million Netflix users and 20 million paid Spotify users, there are still more than 100 million people using BitTorrent on any given day and that massive free consumption decreases the price that content owners can charge for content,” explained Rightscorp president and COO Robert Steele in an essay published in July.
Price depression is an ongoing reality for content owners large and small, though fighting it doesn’t carry the same stigma as before. Rightscorp isn’t the only company policing on behalf of content owners; others like ToppleTrack now help clients manage the never-ending chore of identifying illegal downloads and issuing DMCA takedown notices.
But the effects of content piracy have been drastic. Ironically, one of AT&T’s ‘GigaPower’ ads was set against the backdrop of Nashville, a musical city devastated by the erosion of paid content. According to figures from the Nashville Songwriters Association International, Nashville has lost 80 percent of its full-time songwriter base since 2000, with a total collapse in the creative middle-class resulting. The roots of that sad story start with content piracy, and as Mr. Steele suggests, depressed content pricing and lowered royalties are the results of ‘competing with free’.
“At the moment it’s rare for ISPs to disconnect pirating users and this case has the potential to alter the landscape.”
The question now is how much Cox will end up paying for that mess, and how many content owners will now pile-on. But aside from compensation that could stretch into the tens of billions of dollars, Cox Communications could be forced to dramatically change its policies as they relate to piracy, including permanent measures to deal with repeat infringers.
Other ISPs, including the likes of Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner, could face similar sanctions powered by the recent precedent, with a completely different landscape for piracy control and content valuation resulting. Indeed, experts on the matter point to equally sloppy or deliberately passive policies among other major ISPs, a group that is undoubtedly watching this trial very, very carefully. “At the moment it’s rare for ISPs to disconnect pirating users and this case has the potential to alter the landscape,” noted Torrentfreak.
BMG Rights Management (US) LLC et al v. Cox Enterprises, Inc. et al has now gone to trial.
Image by davidkn1, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC by 2.0).
“You’re Gonna Pay for All that Piracy, American ISPs”
Where’s that thumbs up emoji when you really need it…
Ludicrous. Let’s blame and make pay the companies that provide the pipe, as opposed to the people who actually commit the crime. Pure brilliance.
It is.
Just like when a bank knowingly accepts drug money and knowingly enables drug transactions, the bank most definitely should be punished, even if we aren’t yet able to punish the drug kingpin.
Great job! This is akin to fining a department store because a shoplifter stole the latest Taylor Swift release. In any case, those who know will continue to exercise their fair use rights and download their media from a free source prior to taking a chance that it flops when they purchase it. For every new overbearing and oppressive “security measure” put in place, there are dozens of methods to circumvent those measures. Remember when everyone recorded their favorite mix tape directly from radio? Most people from the cassette era have done so, and don’t seem to get that that practice amounted to piracy. Ever copy your favorite cd for your buddy? Piracy. That VHS movie you rented from blockbuster years ago and copied? Piracy. The music you played at your kid’s 16th birthday party for him/her and a dozen of their friends without paying royalties to the authors (a public display of copyrighted material sans the express consent of the copyright holder)? Copyright Infringement. I foresee this action ending up finding in favor of the ISP’s, as they cannot be expected to violate their customer’s privacy in order to assure that no piracy is going on. It is also beyond the scope and control of the Courts. If a gun owner uses his firearm to murder someone, it is ridiculous to attempt to hold the firearms dealer liable for the murderer’s actions. The same logic is true here.
“This week, he’s laying the groundwork for a potentially disastrous level of liability and damages, not just for Cox, but an entire class of US-based ISPs”
How could this take so many years?
Because idiot RIAA lawyers never bothered to read the DMCA, and completely missed the repeat infringer clause. It should indeed have happened years ago.
Mainstream piracy could disappear in less than 24 hours if we finally stop the ISPs from stealing.
Think about it:
Global economy would boom like never before. It would be a new golden era for software development, music and movies.
fingers crossed! So many times great news like this turned into nothing… Waiting to see how and if it’ll change a thing for real…
It won’t change much, most piracy takes place in plain site, take facebook for example, some 75% of it’s content is pirated off someone else’s Youtube or Videscape channel
If so, then FaceBook has to be fought on legal grounds as well, and forced to pay up.
But really, stronger laws than DMCA are needed. The whack-a-mole approach with no real penalty to infringers is clearly not working.
Paul, I get it. You’re not technical. But c’mon….
“Across both video and audio, most of the legitimate market is shifting away from downloads and more towards streaming, with players like Spotify, Pandora, and Netflix grabbing a bigger chunk of the action. All of that creates less need for download-intensive bandwidth, yet that’s exactly what Cox is pitching to prospective clients.”
Bandwidth is bandwidth. The only difference between downloading and streaming is that with streaming, the file doesn’t stay on the drive when you are done. Most households need these high speeds because they have 3-4 people on tablets, smartphones and PCs at the same time. And if you fire up 1-2 netflix streams per house, it gets used up pretty quickly.
so once they shut down the ISPs, are they then going to go after HD mfg’s? for allowing you to store 8tb of data on a single drive. “there is no legitimate need for 8tb drives outside of piracy!”
you can’t stop the pirates. you can barely slow them down. the goal should be to get more people buying into streaming. it’s the only way. nobody is going to go back to buying cds or downloads on a large scale the cat is already out of the bag. the industry needs to move on. limit the amount of hours of free streaming to force people to upgrade. people don’t care about ads. they’d be more likely to upgrade if they could only stream 1 hour of music each day.
Not true. an 8TB drive would house some of my clients projects in the music industry. Videos, pro tools sessions, etc. etc.
Bandwidth isn’t bandwidth. Besides the obvious difference between a download and a stream, there are tremendously different considerations that actual downloads introduce, including uploads (seeding). But the real giveaway is this: if Cox is chasing multi-person, multi-device environments that hog more streaming bandwidth, why aren’t they pitching that? Why are they pitching based on the speed of large batches of downloads, including small discographies worth of songs?
the thing is this, bandwidth IS bandwidth. it’s merely the pipe through which data transfers. yes, torrentors will also bee seeding and uploading. but so are folks who are using facetime, snapchat or uploading videos. the upload bandwidth on cox is laughable. i use them. i pay for the 200mb plan and it’s still slow.
what if cox is trying to play the ‘everyone wants to pay for downloads’ card? yes, you can download 25 itunes songs in a few seconds. yes you can also download 25 songs through torrents in 25 seconds. ultimately cox and the other ISPs will win. because in the end, the banned users could sue for being discriminated against. it’s not cox’s responsibility to police what it’s users do. much like selling a gun to a convicted murderer isn’t illegal.
C’mon Aaron, please do some research. Maybe, starting with this article, or the endless amount of legal documentation (and previous articles we’ve written) on the matter?
Saying ‘bandwidth is bandwidth’ is kind of like saying ‘dessert is dessert’. At some top-level, sure, a banana split with whipped cream and cherry-on-top is in the same category as a crème brûlée, but there are enough differences worth noting. In this scenario, downloads actually behave differently than streams, starting with the user’s computer, but also how the information (data) is ultimately relayed from the host server (and everything in-between). Up/down ratios are far less important; not to mention the wear-and-tear on PCs.
And when it comes to what kind of bandwidth users are actually consuming, let’s be honest here: streaming is increasingly legal, downloads are increasingly illegal. And Cox is courting downloaders heavily, as it AT&T (see above). Who downloads 26 songs and needs it in 1 second? Someone buying two Adele albums who has a plane to catch? Please.
Paul Resnikoff writes:
C’mon Aaron, please do some research.
No, seriously. He wrote that.
In this scenario, downloads actually behave differently than streams, starting with the user’s computer, but also how the information (data) is ultimately relayed from the host server (and everything in-between). Up/down ratios are far less important; not to mention the wear-and-tear on PCs.
My ISP isn’t my mother. Or my school principal. Or my HR cop. And for reasons cited elsewhere (Child porn! Terror!) it really does NOT want to be a content inspector. (Some ISPs get this, some don’t. One (Hi, Comcast!!) doesn’t care.)
And when it comes to what kind of bandwidth users are actually consuming, let’s be honest here: streaming is increasingly legal, downloads are increasingly illegal.
Uh, yeah. Let’s.
Streaming services which allow you to save local copies offline? Tidal, which allows you to save local copies of lossless FLACs to portable devices for offline play? The 64GB SD card in my Samsung phone is just about full. And Hi-Res music? Zep’s “Physical Graffiti (Deluxe)” is 3GB. Nirvana’s “In Utero (superhero smorgasbord edition)” is 4GB. All legal, none of it streaming.
So what’s your industry-friendly plan? What will make Doug Morris happy? Verizon should open an investigation every time I buy a new album from HDTracks? Every time I transfer files up and down from Dropbox?
And Cox is courting downloaders heavily, as it AT&T (see above). Who downloads 26 songs and needs it in 1 second? Someone buying two Adele albums who has a plane to catch? Please.
Did I mention that I’m buying all my hi-res music on a 7.1 Verizon DSL line? Do you think the people selling Hi-Res music WANT me to dread the long slow downside of buying anything longer than 30 minutes? That multiple album purchases are simply out of the question?
And when it comes to what kind of bandwidth users are actually consuming, let’s be honest here: streaming is increasingly legal, downloads are increasingly illegal.
A unique achievement in Stupid.
I finally figured it out: You’re Lefsetz’s idiot cousin Eddie, right?
techfreak troll. all over this site getting pwnd.
Yeah. “Bandwidth isn’t bandwidth.”
Total burn, defined.
Higher bandwidth connections are rarely bought to download music more quickly. It has more to do with downloading 20-30GB games from Steam and many people upgrade their internet packages for the upload, not the download. Cable packages are heavily assymetrical and things like streaming on Twitch or online backups suffer on lower speed connections. People have to upgrade to the 100 Mbps package to get the 10 Mbps (or whatever it is) upload they want.
Paul, by your logic, when I go to the department store and purchase my selections, I shouldn’t expect to be able to take possession of those purchases immediately. Of course I want all that data I just paid for RIGHT NOW! That’s exactly why I sat on my tail at home and purchased the downloads, so I wouldn’t have to waste gas driving from store to store until I find what I want and then wait in line with a bunch of neanderthals pushing and shoving and generally behaving like something one would view on Animal Planet. It’s as close to RIGHT NOW as one can get, and to assert that wanting those purchases as fast as possible is wrong, or that it indicates criminal activity is the epitome of ignorance on your part. Your entire article served no purpose other than to indicate that you are not only ignorant of technology, but also that you have absolutely no understanding of the U.S. Constitution, or of the Law and that you are completely out of tough with both reality and human nature.
Actually, it is illegal to sell a firearm to a convicted murderer. But keep dipping in the Kool-Aid without knowing the flavor, by all means.
Paul,
First, I want to thank you for covering this important story.
But, I also feel the need to express that I believe your assertion that the inclusion of common file download times in Cox’s marketing plan represents an intent to target users who pirate is a red herring that confuses instead of clarifying this topic.
I manage 8 datacenters spread across 4 continents. It’s common to express the benefits of high capacity network connections in terms of file download times simply because it’s one of the only online experiences that nearly everyone can relate to. It doesn’t point to a conspiracy.
It may, however, reflect just how small the real world benefits of a 1 Gbps Internet connection would be for most consumers. The speed of light is nearly constant. Without “tweaking” most operating systems won’t take advantage of the additional capacity Cox us trying to sell.
In my opinion, the facts of this case are compelling enough… speculating about the intent of a marketing campaign seems unnecessary and unhelpful. Don’t feed the trolls. 🙂
Absolutely agreed! To seem more user friendly to the average (tech ignorant) Computer user, Hard drive storage capacity is often simplified as “up to [x] hours of music, or [y] hours of video”. It is an industry standard to relate things like bandwidth, storage capacity, and clock speed in terms which the lay-person can easily grasp. To the techno illiterate “8TB” has no more meaning than “8MB”, except for a vague understanding that 8TB is larger than 8MB. Relate that same information in terms of how many songs or movies it can store, and now even the most illiterate of computer users get the idea. Author, you may want to accept the facts from those who know: Bandwidth is in fact Bandwidth. If you don’t believe that, try streaming an hd movie over dial-up.
“you can’t stop the pirates”
That is a defeatist attitude. You can’t completely “stop” most crimes; should we not fight them and limit them to all extents possible? Should we not seek financial penalties which should compensate rights holders for their losses?
cool, but not one single black person has ever been sued by the RIAA, and ebay allowed them to sell hard drives full of stolen mp3 for years………so if we can get some equal justice i am fine with that.
wtf??? smfh!!!
yes black privilege has been around for decades…..i dont understand why you are upset at the truth?
Having ISPs disconnect a customer for downloading copyrighted material makes no sense. The ISP will lose the revenue / customer with no benefit. No incentive to help protect copyrighted material for ISP. Check out sandvines latest usage information. Torrent usage continues to decline. Piracy is the reason we have Netflix and Spotify for $9.00 per month. The use of a VPN client is so easy and cheap that many are using today. I would guess that if anything comes of this that ISPs would direct repeat offenders to subscribe to a VPN service rather than lose the customer and revenue.
The incentive for ISPs to terminate accounts is pretty clear… if they don’t, they risk litigation from rights holders. Yes, they’ll lose a subscriber, but that’s a lot less expensive than a multi-million dollar lawsuit based on statutory damages. Are you actually reading the article?
There had better be at least 5 more lawsuits by the end of the month. Artists, get your shit together.
Why is ‘repeat infringers’ in quotes, Paul? Were they shown to be repeat infringers?
Is it because this is all based on accusations by Rightscorp using destroyed software and not demonstration of any real piracy?
If I were an ISP weighing my liabilities, I’d definitely count among them:
1) my liability in passing along Rightscorp’s extortion demands (DMN won’t mention it, but Rightscorp didn’t just want Cox-created warnings to be sent out. Rightscorp wanted Cox to distribute Rightscorp’s extortion-racket letters to Cox customers. There’s nothing in the DMCA saying the ISP does that.).
2) what happens when the number of people wrongfuilly terminated by ISPs based on accusations by outfits like Rightscorp finally becomes big enough to become class-action.
So they can’t win for losing. Rightscorp is getting some stink-eye from Canada, but O’Grady is offering up lots of brown-eye action. If greedy ISPs insist on not getting in the “common carrier” lifeboat, that’s their funeral. All it will take is one child-porn case for the shit to hit the fan. That day will come soon enough, but probably not soon enough to save Cox. In the end, Comcast will get them for pennies on the dollar. Good luck collecting on that, Rightscorp.
‘Repeat infringers’ is in quotes because it is a specific, legal definition as contained within Section 512 of the DMCA. It refers to people that, well, infringe over and over again in a clear manner, and calls for ISPs to take some predictable, consistent action against them.
On the destroyed code accusations, I’d read the case. Cox argued that this was deliberate spoliation, but a lot of that was simply not keeping copies of older code versions, which is different.
On the destroyed code accusations
Sorry – the accusations are of piracy. The code actually was destroyed. It’s not an accusation.
As far as anyone knows, it’s the digital equivalent of a divining rod. Gangsters are good at racketeering. Writing reliable code? Maybe not so much.
lol, like this guy with an engineering degree who has been working in tech for almost 30 years? what a gangster!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stlrbrt
Oh, wow – a lifelong suit who spent two years lost in the wilderness hanging out his “Steele Consulting” shingle (the slimmest part of his CV) before Rightscorp came into his life. I love happy endings.
LOL you mean like the president and COO Robert Steele who has an engineering degree and has been working in tech for almost 30 years? What a scary gangster!
So a man with that resume “lost” all his company’s backups????
LOL. “For profit”.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/meet-rightscorp-the-internets-new-for-profit-copyright-cop/
Because your ability to understand and apply the DMCA, and weigh in on evidence (that you haven’t even seen) is so much better that that of a federal judge.
Go smoke another one.
If the evidence is tainted, it shouldn’t be seen by anybody.
Derp.
It would seem your objection has been overruled.
No champagne for me, thanks. I’m trying to stay on the Constitution.
This is the stupidest thing ever. Blame the consumers who are actually committing the piracy. They are the ones committing the crime. I guess it’s just easier to go after someone else, especially if they have money.
Be happy to blame them. Be happy to have them disconnected like the law says the ISPs need to be doing.
Get busy ISPs, or get out your checkbook.
Not a fix for the situation. People will just find other ways. I suppose you pull weeds from your garden by cutting off the tip, as opposed to going for the root, also?
“This is the stupidest thing ever. Blame the consumers who are actually committing the piracy. They are the ones committing the crime.” Rick Shaw
You pro-exploitation guys are so twisted. You’d love it if we tripped again and went after the consumer. You’ve been leaning on that outrage for a decade.
“One armed grandmother in wheel chair fined $250K by the RIAA when grand-daughter downloaded 30 ABBA songs.”
“Pro-exploitation” what are you talking about? The problem is that you aren’t seeing reality. You’re focused on trying to blame someone, anyone other than those people who are actually perpetrating the crimes.
© 2014 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. 🙂
Ha, glad you caught that. That’s the best part.
So, you gonna take it down?
Guess not.
So, you condemn copyright infringement and piracy while committing copyright infringement. Even the most valid of your points just flew right out the window… Maybe AT&T should sue your ISP?
1) AT&T is an ISP. Therefore, THEY steal.
2) Two wrongs make a right
i cant recall if i even made one post here all year. im retired from the music business, not that anyone cares, and i just wanted to quickly drop in to say something i shouldnt.
this is all bogus anyways. that digital internet hole, while technically shallow due to its recent inception, is ultimately so deep and so connected to other super nasty holes, that i suggest everyone jump down it to brush up on some things.
i mean, at this stage, to me, its just all a total laugh.
the internet is a massive blackhole, this is just smoke and mirrors to appease whoever elsewhere needs to be appeased but ultimately aint nothing down below it gonna change, not until the cold war and the us and china and us and north korea relationships get better. i see my whole life being spent with the internet being a massive blakhole rip off scam fest surveillance bicker bully fest of no money to make and a toxic hell hole of a miserable ride. its all free, anything otherwise is just illusory layered b.s. to make other people money or bolster appearances, nothing more. the only way to make money on the internet, well, that should be easy to figure out otherwise its just a scam fest rip off property gut job dump fest.
any indie or any label or publisher thinking the man is gonna step up and help them when they are at the brink of multiple wars at all times, well then, good luck to yall!
music is about the last business id want to be in right now and digital anything is mostly pointless unless with the military or someone connected to them, is just a waste of time and energy, for the most part.
anyways.
have a good one everyone, luckily for yall since yall hate me so much this is all good news that im done, so time for yall to celebrate and throw a party, im fully done with the business and all exploitation industries are out the door for me, all new music if i make any will never touch the internet, will never be released anywhere, and will be put on some harddrives and kept in a bank safety deposit box along with a will that doesnt allow the property and material to be released for at least a few generations.
cheers!
🙂
From what I see, COX was indeed guilty of not taking reasonable measures to deal with copyright violators. That being said;
I find abhorrent the ridiculous conclusions being drawn from COX’s advertising of service packages.
Cox supplies connections and services in which speed is frequently a measure of quality. If a company is going to pitch a product, they are going to do so in a context that a customer understands. Customers download songs, movies, (yes even home videos), games from Steam, software applications, updates to software, and much more. One universal part of the experience is how long it takes to complete these tasks. The statements from COX’s Advertising provide a reference that is easy to relate to. Telling a customer that they can download at 3,000 BPS is just not nearly as appealing from a marketing and advertising perspective as giving people a real world measurement that is representative of activities they routinely perform.
That anyone in this case accepted that COX’s Advertising was intentionally tailored to attract copyright violators is ludicrous to the nth degree. The ignorance of those who accept this argument is only surpassed by their supreme lack of capacity for critical thinking.
John Wayne said “Life is hard, but it’s harder if you’re stupid”.
I would say, “Someone’s ego is writing checks that their intellect can’t cash.”
This article is NOT consistent with my experience today Jan 18, 2018. I pay COX for “Gigablast” extra. Today, I am not getting close to “gigabyte” speed. TWO Technicians have looked at the problem and the first words out of their mouths? “Pulled up your acct and it says you have COPYRIGHT VIOLATIONS. Maybe we are “throttling your speeds”. My response? “have RECEIVED NO NOTICE (Emails). After several calls to COX, hour of wasted time, an Agent said “no we are not, but, you had a “notice” of Copyright violation BACK IN 2014, AND WE HAVE A BUG IN OUR PROGRAM AND WILL EVENTUALLY BE CORRECTED BUT DONT KNOW WHEN BUT FOR NOW JUST IGNORE IT IF SOMEONE SAYS IT AGAIN”
GREAT, Movie/Music/CORP POLICE HAVE STRUCK AGAIN, OR “accused, punished WITHOUT, Conviction OR Proof, the NEW, “AMERICAN WAY”, Atta Boy Trump…Thanks for removing Net Neutrality