• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 25, 2024

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Justice Department to weigh in on a battle between Cox Communications and record companies over illegal music downloads by broadband subscribers.

The court's request comes in a lawsuit brought in 2018 by Sony Music Entertainment and other music companies against Cox for allegedly facilitating piracy. The music companies alleged that they sent “hundreds of thousands” of notifications about piracy to Cox, and that the company failed to terminate repeat offenders.

Cox was found liable and a jury ordered the broadband provider to pay $1 billion to the record companies.

The internet service provider then appealed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a finding that Cox contributed to copyright infringement by failing to disconnect alleged file-sharers, but sent the matter back to the trial court for a new trial on damages.

Cox recently asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case, arguing that the lower courts' ruling could result in mass disconnections of broadband subscribers.

“This is an emergency,” Cox wrote in a petition filed in August. “Without this court’s intervention, the Fourth Circuit’s ruling threatens mass evictions from the internet, severing millions from an essential conduit to engagement with modern society.”

The internet service providers Verizon, Frontier and Altice -- which are facing separate copyright infringement suits for allegedly failing to disconnect suspected file-sharers -- backed Cox's request.

They argued in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in September that the lower court's ruling against Cox “runs roughshod over the traditional common-law limits on aiding-and-abetting liability.”

“A business that merely knows some people are using its product for nefarious ends is not liable as an aider and abettor, even if it consciously fails to stop them,” the companies added.

They noted that disconnecting IP addresses connected to alleged copyright infringement could affect a broad swath of consumers.

“Termination prevents everyone who relies on a shared internet connection -- in a household, coffee shop, office, school, library, or hospital -- from using the internet for any purpose,” Verizon and the others argued. “They cannot look for a job, pay their bills, read the news, communicate with co-workers, post homework assignments, or check prescription medications.”

The Supreme Court didn't set a deadline for the U.S. Solicitor General to file a brief, and it's not clear whether the Biden administration will weigh in before president-elect Trump takes office.