Looks Like Altice Is Still Battling Warner Music’s Infringement Claims — Discovery Dispute Intensifies Following BMG Settlement

The Long Island headquarters of Altice USA. Photo Credit: Kidfly182

Earlier in August, internet service provider Altice USA quietly settled the copyright infringement lawsuit filed against it by BMG and others. But a separate legal battle between the ISP and Warner Music Group (WMG) is still in full swing. The latter stems from a complaint submitted by WMG, Sony Music Entertainment (SME), and an array of their subsidiaries in December of 2023. Resembling the settled copyright action levied by BMG as well as Universal Music Group (UMG), the newer suit accuses Altice of failing to address subscribers’ repeat infringement.

And now, despite the resolution of the older disagreement, the involved parties still appear to be slugging it out in connection with the 2023 complaint. Furthermore, the latest twist in the continued dispute, which was ordered into mediation this past May, directly concerns the settled suit.

As described by the plaintiffs in an early August motion to compel additional discovery, Altice had “produced extensive relevant discovery in the” courtroom confrontation with BMG. On the other hand, the ISP had “produced, essentially, nothing in the eight months that this case has been pending,” according to the filing entities.

Moreover, Altice and its counsel allegedly refused to turn over the sought materials “without articulating any burden,” having provided a total of “only” 1,408 documents at the time of the motion’s filing.

Thus, the plaintiffs asked the court to make the ISP produce the BMG suit’s discovery materials in their entirety within 10 days, attaching a proposed order for good measure.Predictably, Altice fired back (including with a proposed order of its own) and opposed the request as “pure overreach, in violation of proper discovery practice, and a source of needless distraction and expense in a case with already significant discovery obligations.”

Running with those points, the court (not the aforesaid mediator) today set a September 9th hearing on the discovery motion. And while it’ll be interesting to see how the sub-dispute unfolds, the bigger takeaway is that this distinct action is playing out notwithstanding the other Altice case’s settlement.

Also playing out in one form or another are several different infringement suits targeting ISPs. Verizon was named in a complaint in July, whereas Cox Communications this month opted to take its long-running infringement showdown to the Supreme Court. As some know, December will mark the half-decade anniversary of the massive jury verdict handed down in the same Cox copyright case.