According to a new report from Axios, AT & T will cancel the Internet service of more than a dozen subscribers due to repeated violations of hacking and copyright infringement.

According to the information website, the relevant customers will be informed in the coming days. AT & T told Axios that the company had been prompted to take action after "content owners" told them that users illegally shared copyrighted content using its Internet service.

"The content owners informed us that they thought they had evidence that an Internet account was illegally sharing copyrighted content," said Jim Greer, spokesman for the company. AT & T, in a statement sent to USA TODAY.

"On the basis of the notices we received, we identified the customer on the account and shared the information we received and contacted the customer to inform them of the violation of the right to the customer. author and offer assistance to prevent the continuation of the activity. "Many customers who continue to receive further notifications of copyright infringement from content owners despite our efforts to educate him, will see their service interrupted. "

According to AT & T policies, affected users were informed at least nine times in advance, alleging that they were potentially violating the copyright of others.

It is unclear what content (movies, TV shows, music, books, etc.) has been broadcast, shared or downloaded, or whether it is content that AT & T now holds in connection with his $ 85 billion purchase of Time Warner. AT & T has been implementing piracy policies for years and the company has not changed them as a result of the merger.

This seems to be one of the first times that AT & T has applied its piracy policy directly. Similar to other Internet Service Providers, AT & T was previously part of a "copyright alert system", an internet industry group that collaborated with the film and video industries. registration to educate users and allow them to reduce copyright infringement.

The group would send up to six warnings to users who violated copyright, with Internet service slowed down at the fifth and sixth alerts if the bad behavior persisted.

After failing to do much to prevent online piracy, it was closed in 2017.

Needless to say, by acquiring Time Warner, it is likely that AT & T will encounter a lot of hacking in the near future. "Game of Thrones," HBO's hit show, has been the most hacked TV show on the BitTorrent file-sharing service each of the last six years, according to the TorrentFreak website. HBO will launch the eighth and final season of the show next year.

HBO was part of Time Warner and is now part of AT & T's WarnerMedia division.

Follow Eli Blumenthal on Twitter @eliblumenthal

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