Supreme Court hears billion-dollar battle over online piracy

(WASHINGTON) — As billions of people worldwide use the internet to illegally stream or download copyrighted material like music, movies and TV shows, the entertainment industry is trying to crack down on American internet service providers for complicity in the alleged crimes of their customers.

A major case before the Supreme Court on Monday could determine whether those providers can be held financially liable to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars for “contributing” to copyright infringement if they fail to cut off internet access to any account suspected of engaging in piracy.

Cox Communications, the third largest broadband provider in the U.S. and a party in the case, faces a $1 billion penalty awarded by a jury to Sony Music Entertainment and other media companies that sued over the distribution of pirated content online. It was upheld by a federal appeals court.

The company is asking the justices to toss out the verdict and put limits on contributory liability.

If the judgment is upheld, Cox says it could go bankrupt, potentially eliminating internet access entirely in some communities and leading to “mass evictions from the internet” in places where piracy has been suspected, such as “homes, barracks, hospitals, and hotels upon bare accusation.”

Cox says it opposes copyright infringement and takes steps to prevent it, but that it cannot be held responsible for the actions of individual users, who are impossible to pinpoint and trace.

“Your [internet service provider] does not purposefully participate in, or try to bring about, what you do online any more than your phone company or FedEx do in communications they transmit,” Cox attorneys wrote the high court in a legal brief.

Federal law makes it a crime to directly infringe on a copyright, but secondary liability by another party involved in copyright infringement — such as internet service providers — remains an evolving area of law.

As a general rule, anyone who “materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another may be held liable as a contributory infringer,” lawyers for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), an entertainment industry trade group, told the court in a legal brief.

Copyright owners insist the risk of being sued creates an incentive for internet service providers to help root out online piracy and suspend the accounts of those suspected of dealing in protected material.

“Cox made a deliberate and egregious decision to elevate its own profits over compliance with the law,” attorneys for Sony Music Entertainment argue in a legal brief, “supplying the means for massive copyright infringement to specific users that it knew were habitual offenders because [it wanted to] to hold on to every subscriber [it] can.”

Nearly 19 billion downloads of pirated movies and TV shows were made using online peer-to-peer software in 2023, according to the MPAA. The copyright violations cost the U.S. economy more than $29 billion and “hundreds of thousands of jobs,” the group estimates.

Justices will hear oral arguments over the scope of potential “contributory liability” of internet service providers on Monday and issue a decision in the dispute by the end of June 2026.

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