Internet Service Provider Scores Big SCOTUS Win

Internet providers just got some breathing room from the Supreme Court in a major copyright showdown. In a unanimous result Wednesday, the court said Cox Communications cannot be held broadly liable for customers who illegally download music, wiping away the core of a $1 billion win Sony and other labels had secured at trial, the Hill reports. Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said companies aren't copyright infringers "for merely providing a service to the general public" even if they know some users will break the law; instead, labels must show the provider intended or tailored its service for piracy."

• "Cox provided internet service to its subscribers, but it did not intend for that service to be used to commit copyright infringement," Thomas wrote, per Variety. "Holding Cox liable merely for failing to terminate internet service to infringing accounts would expand secondary copyright liability beyond our precedents."

Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, agreed Cox should prevail but refused to join Thomas' wider reasoning, accusing the majority of "artificially" narrowing secondary liability. The case, launched in 2018 and targeting 57,000 Cox accounts tied to more than 10,000 alleged infringements, had drawn intense interest from free-speech groups worried about knock-on effects for platforms from bookstores to social media. Cox was supported by the Trump administration and major tech companies, including Google and Amazon, when the court heard arguments in December, Reuters reports.

Administration lawyers said finding Cox liable could threaten universal internet access because the lower court's decision didn't distinguish between individual users and university accounts shared by thousands, or regional ISPs with tens of thousands of customers. On Wednesday, Cox called the decision "a decisive victory for the broadband industry and for the American people who depend on reliable internet service." The ruling, the company said, "affirms that internet service providers are not copyright police and should not be held liable for the actions of their customers."