Cox Communications, which serves about 6 million internet subscribers, received more than 163,000 notices from Sony Music Entertainment and other copyright owners identifying IP addresses associated with illegal downloading of copyrighted songs. Despite implementing a system of warnings and occasional terminations, Cox continued providing service to known repeat infringers, prompting Sony to sue for contributory copyright infringement. A jury awarded Sony $1 billion in damages.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority that contributory liability requires proving a service provider either actively induced infringement or provided a service specifically tailored to infringement. "Cox neither induced its users' infringement nor provided a service tailored to infringement," Thomas wrote, emphasizing that Cox's internet service was "clearly capable of substantial or commercially significant noninfringing uses." The Court rejected the Fourth Circuit's broader standard that would impose liability based on knowledge alone.
The case arose after Sony enlisted MarkMonitor to track copyright violations across the internet, sending Cox thousands of notices during a two-year period. The Eastern District of Virginia jury found Cox liable for both contributory and vicarious infringement, but the Fourth Circuit reversed on vicarious liability while affirming contributory liability. The Supreme Court granted certiorari only on the contributory liability question.
The decision severely limits internet service providers' exposure to copyright liability but may render the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor provisions largely meaningless. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, concurred in the judgment but criticized the majority for "unnecessarily" limiting secondary liability theories and "dismantling the statutory incentive structure that Congress created" through the DMCA.