ISP Must Unmask 100 Alleged BitTorrent Pirates in RIAA Lawsuit

Altice, parent company of Internet provider Optimum, must disclose the personal details of a hundred alleged music pirates. The request comes from a group of prominent record labels and is part of an ongoing copyright infringement liability lawsuit. Altice, meanwhile, will receive anti-piracy information, including that related to a letter the RIAA previously sent to BitTorrent Inc., the owner of popular torrent client uTorrent.

bittorrent not a crimePiracy liability lawsuits have targeted large and small Internet providers across the United States.

American telco Altice was sued by various parties in recent years, both directly and indirectly as the owner of ISP Optimum.

Last summer, Optimum chose to settle its lawsuit with some music industry giants, including BMG, UMG, and Capitol Records, under undisclosed terms. But that didn’t mean its legal woes were over.

In a similar yet separate lawsuit, the company is pitted against a group of almost 50 music labels, that also accused Altice of ‘mass-infringement’. Assisted by the RIAA, the music companies claimed that the ISP failed to take action against repeat infringers on the ‘Optimum’ network.

“Despite Altice’s stated policies and despite receiving tens of thousands of infringement notices concerning Plaintiffs’ works […] Altice knowingly permitted repeat infringers to continue to use its services to infringe,” the complaint read.

100 ‘Pirating’ Subscribers

The complaint was filed over a year ago and the parties are currently conducting discovery, seeking relevant evidence to support their positions. Several requests link to the RIAA, which often acts as the music industry’s anti-piracy agent.

In an order issued by a Texas federal court last week, the music companies were given the green light to obtain the personal details of 100 Altice subscribers. These accounts were previously targeted in copyright notices sent by the RIAA or a third party.

Details are scarce, but the group will likely consist of subscribers who were repeatedly warned over alleged piracy activity. The music labels could use this information to gather further evidence to support their allegations.

For example, subscriber testimony could help to strengthen the argument that the ISP failed to take effective measures against repeat infringers.

Unmask Subscribers

unmask subs
There’s nothing to suggest that these people will be approached with any claims directly. The names, emails, and addresses of the subscribers are marked as “highly confidential” and can only be viewed by attorneys acting for the music companies.

The subscribers will be informed about the forthcoming disclosure of their personal details and any objections will be heard by the court.

Several of the music company plaintiffs have obtained information concerning alleged pirate subscribers in similar lawsuits. Movie companies also obtained subscribers’ personal details in a similar lawsuit against Internet provider Frontier Communications.

RIAA’s Letter to BitTorrent Inc.

Subscriber details are just a fraction of the information requested by the parties during discovery. Altice, for example, will also gain access to some non-privileged documents and communications between the music companies and their anti-piracy partners, including the RIAA, OpSec, and Audible Magic.

This includes information regarding a letter the RIAA sent to the company behind the uTorrent and BitTorrent clients in 2015. In the letter, the RIAA asked BitTorrent Inc. (now Rainberry Inc.), to block copyright infringing content.

Info related to RIAA’s BitTorrent Letter


At the time, BitTorrent Inc. was actively distancing itself from anything piracy related. In its letter, the RIAA asked the company to live up to that promise by actively blocking torrent hashes in its clients.

“We are willing to establish a process to share the hashes with BitTorrent Inc. on a regular basis so that BitTorrent Inc. can use the information to deter further infringement of those files via its goods and services,” RIAA wrote at the time.

It doesn’t appear that BitTorrent Inc. took the RIAA up on its offer. While some trackers have banned ‘copyright infringing’ hashes, we have never seen evidence of torrent clients acting similarly.

After the letter was published, the issue wasn’t raised in public again. Instead, the RIAA’s members focused their efforts on Internet providers, including Altice, which brings us back to the lawsuit at hand.

The nature of information sought by Altice isn’t clear. The company previously said that if music labels are concerned about piracy, they are free to go after developers of ‘piracy’ software. While neutral torrent clients don’t fall into that category, the ISP will be interested in any related legal considerations that took place behind the scenes.