In a new report, AT&T looks to be terminating the accounts of roughly a dozen users for repeated copyright infringement. It’s unclear if this action is due to the company recently purchasing Time Warner and if this is just the beginning to a broader attempt to protect its newly acquired property.
After its purchase of Time Warner for $85 billion and the release of its piracy policy, AT&T is taking steps to punish customers who are illegally pirating copyrighted content. According to a report from Axios, the mobile carrier and internet service provider (ISP) is terminating a dozen or so customer’s service in the next week.
While ISPs have long reported pirating claims to customers, this is the first known time that AT&T is actually taking action against its customers. And while it isn’t an unprecedented move, it’s unclear if AT&T is only cutting off service for users who have stolen content owned by the company.
At least for now, it’s likely that you won’t have AT&T notifying you that it’s cutting off your service. AT&T states that those who will soon have terminated accounts are users who have been notified by the company at least nine separate times of copyright infringement:
Based on the notices we received, we identified the customer on the account and shared with them the information we received. We also reached out to the customer to educate them about copyright infringement and offer assistance to help prevent the activity from continuing. A small number of customers who continue to receive additional copyright infringement notifications from content owners despite our efforts to educate them, will have their service discontinued.
What’s also yet to be seen is if AT&T will take larger and more wide-spread action against online piracy that it owns. Only time will tell.
