The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Wednesday that internet provider Cox Communications cannot be held liable for music piracy from its users.
The Supreme Court had agreed to consider the case last year, taking on a years-long legal battle between the major record labels and the internet provider, with the labels saying internet gatekeepers should be held responsible for their users’ infringing behaviors. A Virginia court first ruled in the labels’ favor in 2019, though an appeals court overturned the $1 billion in damages that were previously determined. Now SCOTUS is shooting the decision down outright.
“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,” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the court’s decision published Wednesday. “Accordingly, we reverse.”
Affirming the decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “without proof that Cox knew more about individual instances of infringement,” the record labels “have at most shown that Cox was “indifferent” to infringement conducted via the connections it sells. Mere indifference, however, is not enough for aiding and abetting liability to attach.”
RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier said in a statement that the trade organization was “disappointed” in the Supreme Court’s decision, adding that there was “overwhelming evidence that the company knowingly facilitated theft.”
“To be effective, copyright law must protect creators and markets from harmful infringement and policymakers should look closely at the impact of this ruling,” Glazier said. “The Court’s decision is narrow, applying only to ‘contributory infringement’ cases involving defendants like Cox that do not themselves copy, host, distribute, or publish infringing material or control or induce such activity.”
In a statement, attorney Michael Friedland said “the decision means that the Supreme Court isn’t coming to the entertainment industry’s rescue.”
“The copyright infringement problem is a technological problem,” he said. “The modern internet makes infringement really easy. The decision means that the industry is going to have solve the problem itself —by developing its own better technology to protect its IP.”
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