Cox Communications sues Rightscorp for 'fabricating' massive infringement claims

By Emmanuel Legrand

US internet provider Cox Communications  has fought back in its on-going legal battle against BMG and Rightscorp by filing a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Central District of California against the music company and its infringement tracking agent Rightscorp for "fabricating massive infringement claims outside the protections of the DMCA safe harbors."

  Cox argues in the lawsuit that while Cox had changed and made public the address for its registered agent from abuse@cox.net to CoxDMCA@cox.net in 2017 to receive DMCA-compliant notices of alleged copyright infringement, virtually every notice sender began to send notices to the updated address, except for Rightscorp.

  "Despite Cox’s public notice, and despite multiple subsequent requests and warnings, Rightscorp persisted in sending on behalf of BMG tens of thousands of notices to Cox’s old address," reads the lawsuit.

An impossible position

  Cox claims that Defendants "knowingly and intentionally" continued to send Cox notices at an invalid address in "a calculated effort to manufacture evidence to support a massive secondary infringement action against Cox." It adds that such actions put Cox "in an impossible position."

  Cox seeks a declaration that: (i) Defendants’ notices of alleged copyright infringement sent to abuse@cox.net are "invalid"; (ii) Defendants’ notices sent to abuse@cox.net are "insufficient, as a matter of law, to provide Cox 10 notice of, or knowledge about, alleged copyright infringement"; and (iii) Defendants’ persistent acts, in knowingly and deliberately sending notices to the incorrect address with the purpose of fabricating massive infringement claims outside the protections of 13 the DMCA safe harbors, "constitute actionable abusive and tortuous misconduct from which Cox is entitled to relief."

Stop abusive practices

  Cox also seeks an order "enjoining Defendants from continuing these abusive practices, monetary damages, and any other such further relief that the Court may deem just and proper."

  BMG initially sued Cox for copyright infringement and in 2015, a Virginia court found Cox guilty of infringement and ordered the ISP to pay $25 million in damages, while another court also found Cox guilty of infringement and went for the maximum penalty per infringement, which amounted to a total of $1 billion. Cox filed an appeal.