Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Over the past few years, record labels have been suing ISPs for not removing music pirates from their services, and today, the record labels may have won a tremendous victory. A US District Court jury has found Cox Communications liable for piracy infringement of more than 10,000 musical works, and as a result, has awarded $1 billion in damages to Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI, as reported by Billboard and Variety.
Essentially, the recording industry just showed that a jury will buy its argument that an ISP should be held liable for failing to kick a music pirate off its network. And similar lawsuits like the one Cox lost today have been filed against Charter, Charter subsidiary Bright House Networks, RCN,…