*The Supreme Court delivered a decisive win for Cox Communications on Wednesday, unanimously siding with the internet provider in a high-stakes copyright battle against the music industry’s three largest players.
Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music had pursued the case for years, but the justices concluded that Cox bears no legal responsibility for how its subscribers chose to use its service, Billboard reports.
The origins of the dispute stretch back to a lawsuit the labels filed against Cox in 2018. Their central argument was that the company turned a blind eye to rampant piracy on its network, having been flooded with infringement notices over the years while failing to take the step of permanently removing any subscriber flagged for stealing music. That argument convinced a jury in December 2019, which found Cox responsible for violations tied to more than 10,000 songs and handed down damages exceeding $99,000 per track — a total that climbed past the $1 billion mark.
Cox warned throughout the legal battle that placing that kind of liability on internet providers would have sweeping consequences for ordinary users, effectively forcing companies to cut off customers to shield themselves from ruinous financial penalties. The labels rejected that framing entirely, insisting the company had knowingly chosen profit over its legal obligations. “Cox made a deliberate and egregious decision to elevate its own profits over compliance with the law,” they claimed.
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The court was unconvinced by the labels’ position. Writing on behalf of all nine justices, Justice Clarence Thomas outlined the standard the majority applied: “Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights.” The ruling makes clear that contributory liability requires proof that a provider specifically designed or intended its service to facilitate infringement.
The justices closed with a pointed summary of their findings. “Cox neither induced its users’ infringement nor provided a service tailored to infringement,” the court wrote. “Accordingly, Cox is not contributorily liable for the infringement of Sony’s copyrights.”
The decision is expected to have lasting implications for how copyright law is applied across the broader internet services industry.
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