• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, May 11, 2017

Internet services provider Windstream has appealed a trial judge's decision to dismiss the company's lawsuit against music publisher BMG, which allegedly threatened to sue Windstream for copyright infringement based on piracy by Web users.

Windstream initiated the appeal this week by filing papers with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. The company hasn't yet presented its substantive arguments to the appellate judges.

The legal battle between Windstream and BMG dates to June 2016, when Windstream sought a declaratory judgment stating it wasn't liable for infringement by users. The Internet services provider took that step shortly BMG won a $25 million verdict against Cox Communications, which was found to have enabled piracy by failing to police file-sharing by its subscribers.

Windstream said in its court papers that it had been threatened with litigation by BMG, which allegedly accused the carrier of allowing its users to infringe copyright.

In April, U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood in New York dismissed Windstream's complaint as premature. "Windstream has not identified an actual case or controversy sufficient to give this court jurisdiction," she wrote.

Wood added that Windstream's claims were too broad to justify the order it sought. "Rather than seeking defined declarations of noninfringement regarding existing or foreseeable disputes about specific copyrights and instances of infringement, Windstream seeks broad declarations about every possible conflict that has occurred or could occur in the future," Wood wrote.