{"id":85036,"date":"2025-09-10T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T09:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=85036"},"modified":"2025-09-10T09:00:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T09:00:50","slug":"u-s-govt-tech-giants-unite-against-isp-piracy-liability-ruling-at-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=85036","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Gov\u2019t & Tech Giants Unite Against ISP Piracy Liability Ruling at Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"supremecourt\"Nearly five years ago, a Virginia jury ordered Cox Communications to pay a billion dollars<\/a> in damages to a coalition of record labels, including Sony and Universal. <\/p>\n

The jury concluded that the Internet provider was liable for the pirating activities of its subscribers, as it failed to terminate their accounts after multiple infringement notices. <\/p>\n

The liability ruling was upheld at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, prompting Cox to request a hearing at the Supreme Court, which formally accepted the case<\/a> and received Cox\u2019s opening brief<\/a> last August.<\/p>\n

In recent days, it became apparent that the Internet provider is not fighting the battle alone; there is support from a wide variety of interested parties, including the U.S. Government, which also backed Cox<\/a> earlier this year. <\/p>\n

U.S. Government Warns of Mass Terminations <\/h2>\n

The U.S. government, through the Office of the Solicitor General, filed an amicus brief supporting Cox\u2019s position. The government\u2019s decision to weigh in is significant; the Solicitor General\u2019s office is seen as the tenth justice<\/a> and its arguments are granted significant weight by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s brief argues that the Fourth Circuit\u2019s decision wrongly applied U.S. copyright law. By doing so, many people may be at risk of losing internet access, while companies such as Cox face broad copyright liability rulings.<\/p>\n

The U.S. brief highlights that secondary liability requires \u201cculpable intent\u201d to facilitate infringement, not just a passive failure to act. The brief states that Cox\u2019s services have substantial non-infringing uses, and its conduct, at worst, showed indifference to infringement, not a desire to facilitate infringement. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

U.S. Government position<\/em><\/center>
\"us<\/center><\/p>\n

If the Fourth Circuit ruling is allowed to stand, then ISPs and other online services may be more inclined to take action following copyright complaints. That would affect innocent users and threaten universal internet access.<\/p>\n

\u201cAffirmance of the ruling below would create a substantial disincentive to ISPs\u2019 provision of universal internet service. Terminations of service would adversely affect not only actual infringers, but also the potentially numerous non-infringing users of terminated accounts,\u201d the U.S. brief reads.<\/p>\n

The U.S. also sides with Cox\u2019s view that mere knowledge of subscriber piracy does not constitute \u2018willful\u2019 copyright infringement, as the lower court suggested to the jury. Willful infringement requires proof that the defendant understood the illegality of their own conduct, not just that they knew their customers\u2019 actions were unlawful, the brief reads.<\/p>\n

Google, Amazon & Microsoft Back Cox<\/h2>\n

Cox\u2019s case also receives support from a coalition of leading tech companies, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Pinterest. They submitted a joint amicus brief warning that the Fourth Circuit\u2019s ruling \u201cthreaten[s] all types of online service providers\u201d with \u201coverbroad and unpredictable liability rules\u201d.<\/p>\n

The tech companies argue that the lower court misinterpreted the DMCA\u2019s safe harbor protections. These are intended to provide a layer of protection for service providers, but the court turned that upside down and transformed it into a \u201cliability-creating mechanism\u201d instead, the companies say.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Upside down<\/em><\/center>
\"google\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Under the DMCA, online services enjoy safe harbor protection if they implement a proper repeat infringer policy. Not doing so makes Cox ineligible for safe harbor protections, but not automatically liable. In this case, the court concluded that Cox is liable for contributory copyright infringement because it failed to implement such a policy. <\/p>\n

Similar to the U.S. position, the tech companies argue that \u201cconscious, culpable conduct\u201d is required to prove contributory infringement, not merely a failure to act. <\/p>\n

The brief also points out that willful infringement requires actual knowledge of its own wrongdoing. The loose standard that was applied by the lower court opens the door to damages awards of $150,000 per work, which leads to \u201ctruly exorbitant damages,\u201d they note. <\/p>\n

Legal scholars, ISPs, rights groups, and others all back Cox<\/h2>\n

The U.S. Government and tech companies are not the only parties that have come out in support of Cox. Filings from a diverse array of fellow ISPs, digital rights groups, and legal scholars, all argue that the lower court\u2019s decision is a dangerous expansion of copyright law that threatens to disrupt the fundamental nature of the internet.<\/p>\n

Altice, AT&T, and Verizon are concerned about the real-world consequences of the ruling for the public, warning of potentially crippling damages awards that could shake up the industry. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt threatens to saddle internet service providers with responsibility for virtually every bad act that occurs online. And it threatens those providers with massive liability if they do not carry out mass internet evictions,\u201d the ISPs write.<\/p>\n

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with the American Library Association and Re:Create, stressed the public policy implications. Their brief argues that the lower court\u2019s ruling would cause ISPs to disconnect \u201cinnocent and vulnerable users\u201d upon the \u201cflimsiest of accusations\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there was ever a case where the Court should act cautiously before expanding the scope of copyright contributory liability, it\u2019s this one. Here, Defendant Cox is an Internet Service Provider (ISP), upon which millions of innocent users rely for internet access, a vital service in today\u2019s society,\u201d they write.<\/p>\n

Digital rights organization Public Knowledge also weighed in, calling the existing precedent \u201cahistorical and contrary to public policy\u201d. The group argues that the Fourth Circuit\u2019s decision misinterprets the DMCA by treating its safe harbor conditions as a trigger for liability, creating a \u201cperverse incentive to terminate first and ask questions later.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A perverse incentive<\/em><\/center>
\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Legal scholars Christopher Cotropia and James Gibson point out that holding Cox liable for its inaction, instead of its actions, is a dangerous precedent that could lead to liability findings for all sorts of mere conduit providers. <\/p>\n

\u201cBy treating Cox\u2019s passive provision of Internet access and data transmission as a knowing, material contribution to infringement, the Fourth Circuit collapsed the crucial legal distinction between conduits and hosts, extending contributory liability into an area where no court or legislature has ever placed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, X Corp., the parent company of Twitter, brought a unique perspective as a social media platform. Its brief argues that the lower court\u2019s ruling would have a chilling effect on free expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeclining to take away an important tool of expression from these ordinary Americans is not the kind of inaction that the doctrine of contributory or aiding-and-abetting liability was meant to reach,\u201d X Corp writes. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo allow a billion dollar award against a party that did not itself directly infringe, did not participate in the infringement, and did not financially benefit from infringing uses versus non-infringing uses by its subscribers is a grotesque distortion of the purposes of copyright law and common-law principles of liability.\u201d<\/p>\n

These briefs make it clear that this isn\u2019t an ordinary case, but a landmark legal battle destined to shape the future of U.S. copyright law. However, these responses are just one side of the argument. The record labels are expected to file their reply brief next month. They will undoubtedly receive support from other rightsholders.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

Copies of all the supporting amicus briefs mentioned in this article, plus some others that came in, are available below. <\/p>\n

\u2013 United States (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Google, Amazon.com, Microsoft, Mozilla and Pinterest (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Law professor Charles Duan (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Electronic Frontier Foundation et al. (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Legal scholars Christopher Cotropia and James Gibson (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Common Sense Copyright Coalition et al. (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Public Knowledge (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 X Corp (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Altice, AT&T and other ISPs (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Computer & Communications Industry Association (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 The Copia Institute (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 ACLU et al. (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Engine Advocacy (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Joshua Moon and the United States Internet Preservation Society (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 American Intellectual Property Law Association (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Intellectual Property Law Scholars (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Internet Society (pdf<\/a>)
\n\u2013 Grande Communications Networks (pdf<\/a>)<\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

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Nearly five years ago, a Virginia jury ordered Cox Communications to pay a billion dollars in damages to a coalition of record labels, including Sony and Universal. The jury concluded that the Internet provider was liable for the pirating activities of its subscribers, as it failed to terminate their accounts after multiple infringement notices. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/85037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}