The Supreme Court sides with Cox and issues a $1 billion copyright judgment against Sony

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Wednesday that internet service providers are not liable for copyright infringement by their users.

“Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely offering a service to the general public with the knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights,” Judge Clarence Thomas wrote in the opinion. “We will return accordingly.”

The ruling marks a significant victory for broadband providers who face pressure from copyright owners to monitor subscriber activities.

Cox Communications will now be held harmless for piracy by its Internet subscription subscribers of songs owned by Sony Music 6758.T , Warner Music Group WMG.O , Universal Music Group UMG.AS and other labels, ending their lawsuit over the copyright of music worth more than a billion dollars.

The 9-0 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision to order a new trial to determine how much the Internet service provider owed the record labels for a form of liability called contributory copyright infringement. Cox had said a new trial could have yielded a verdict against the Atlanta-based ISP of as much as $1.5 billion.

“The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion,” the ruling concluded.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, agreed that Cox should prevail in this case, but rejected the majority’s broader reasoning.

In her separate opinion, Sotomayor wrote that “the majority, without any meaningful explanation, unnecessarily limits secondary liability” and warned that the decision “also undermines the statutory incentive structure Congress created.”

“The facts of this case do not establish the requisite intent necessary to hold Cox liable for intrusion into its network,” she concluded.

“Because the majority unnecessarily limits secondary liability in a manner inconsistent with both precedent and law, I cannot but agree with the judgment.”

In 2018, more than fifty labels joined forces to sue Cox. Internet service providers like Cox are generally not considered liable under U.S. law for infringement by their users if they take reasonable steps to address it. But the labels accused Cox, the largest unit of privately held Cox Enterprises, of failing to respond to thousands of infringement notices, cut off Internet access to repeat infringers or take other measures to deter piracy.

A jury in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled in 2019 that Cox owed the labels $1 billion for user infringement of more than 10,000 copyrights. The jury found Cox liable for both contributory infringement and vicarious infringement, two forms of secondary liability for copyright infringement.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the damages award in 2024. The 4th Circuit ordered a new trial on the extent of damages after affirming the jury’s finding of contributory infringement but reversing the finding of vicarious liability.

Contributory infringement holds parties liable for someone else’s infringement because they knew about it and contributed to it. Vicarious infringement holds parties liable for someone else’s infringement because they had the ability to control the infringement and benefit financially from it.

Cox argued that the labels’ position in the case would expand the concept of contributory infringement too broadly. Cox said this stance would threaten to cut off access to thousands of innocent Internet users, including “entire households, coffee shops, hospitals, universities” and others “merely because an unidentified individual may have previously used the connection to infringe.”

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in December. A lawyer for President Donald Trump’s administration argued in support of Cox. Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and other Internet-focused technology companies also supported Cox in the case. Trade groups from the music, film and book industries supported the labels.

READ THE OPINION OF THE SUPREME COURT – APP USERS, CLICK HERE:

Reuters contributed to this report.