The Supreme Court on Monday hears a billion-dollar case about whether internet providers can be liable for their users’ committing copyright violations using its services.
The legal battle pits the music entertainment industry against Cox Communications, which provides internet to over 6 million residences and business.
A coalition of music labels, which represent artists such as Sabrina Carpenter, Givēon, and Doechii, sued Cox alleging that company should be responsible for the copyright violations of internet users that Cox had been warned were serial copyright abusers.
The coalition argues Cox was sent numerous notices of specific IP addresses repeatedly violating music copyrights and that Cox’s failure to terminate those IP addresses from internet access means that Cox should face the music.
In its briefs, the coalition argued many of Cox’s anti-infringement measurements seem superficial and the company willingly overlooked violations.
The coalition points out that Cox had a 13-strike policy for potentially terminating infringing customers, under which Cox acted against a customer based on how many complaints it received about a particular user. The Cox manager who oversaw the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the law at issue in this case, told his team to