Docket 24-171
Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment
DecidedMar 25, 2026
7-2decision
Source: CourtListener.
Supreme Court rules internet providers cannot be held liable for users' copyright infringement merely by knowing about it
Impact7/10
What it does
The Court held that an internet service provider can only be held "contributorily liable" — meaning legally responsible for someone else's copyright infringement — if it either actively encouraged users to infringe copyrights, or if its service was specifically designed with no meaningful lawful uses. Knowing that some users are infringing copyrights, and failing to cut off their service, is not enough on its own to create legal liability. The Fourth Circuit's broader rule — that knowingly supplying a service to someone who will use it to infringe is sufficient for liability — was rejected.
Who benefits
Internet service providers that receive notices of copyright infringement by their subscribers but continue providing general internet access. Providers of broadly used technology services whose platforms can be used for both lawful and unlawful purposes.
Who is affected
Copyright owners — such as music labels, film studios, and other content creators — who seek to hold internet service providers financially responsible for infringement occurring on their networks. Entities that relied on the Fourth Circuit's broader standard for secondary copyright liability.
Practical impact
Internet service providers can no longer be held contributorily liable for copyright infringement by their users based solely on receiving infringement notices and continuing to provide service. Copyright owners who wish to pursue secondary liability against internet service providers must now show either that the provider actively promoted infringement or that its service has no substantial lawful uses — a very high bar that general internet access will rarely meet. The $1 billion jury verdict against Cox is reversed, and the case is sent back to lower courts for further proceedings consistent with the new standard.
Majority — Thomas
Joined by: Roberts, Alito, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett
The majority held that secondary copyright liability — being held responsible for someone else's infringement — is not expressly created by the Copyright Act, and courts should not expand it beyond what prior precedents established. Under those precedents, a provider can only be contributorily liable if it either actively induced infringement (like a company that marketed its product as a tool for piracy) or provided a service with no substantial lawful uses. The Court reasoned that Cox did neither: it never encouraged users to infringe, there was no evidence it promoted infringement, and general internet access is plainly capable of vast lawful uses. The Court also rejected the argument that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's "safe harbor" provision — which shields providers who adopt anti-infringement policies — implies that providers must otherwise be liable, noting that the DMCA only creates new defenses and does not itself impose new liability. Holding Cox liable simply for continuing to serve subscribers it knew had been flagged for infringement would stretch secondary liability beyond what the Court's precedents allow.
Dissent reasoning
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Jackson, agreed that Cox should not be held liable in this case, but wrote separately to object to how the majority reached that conclusion. The concurrence argued that the majority wrongly treated the two previously recognized forms of contributory liability — inducement and tailoring-to-infringement — as the only possible forms, when prior decisions in Sony and Grokster explicitly left the door open to other common-law theories, such as aiding and abetting. The concurrence also argued that the majority's rule effectively renders the DMCA's safe harbor provision meaningless, because internet service providers now face no realistic threat of secondary liability regardless of what they know or do, removing any incentive to police their networks. Rather than closing off other liability theories, the concurrence would have examined whether Cox could be liable under a common-law aiding-and-abetting standard — but concluded it could not, because Cox lacked specific enough knowledge of who was actually committing infringement to establish the intent required for that theory.
Constitutional question
Can an internet service provider be held secondarily liable for copyright infringement committed by its users simply because the provider knew about the infringement and continued to provide service to those users?
Precedent changed
The Court narrowed the Fourth Circuit's rule from BMG Rights Management (US) LLC v. Cox Communications, Inc., 881 F.3d 293 (4th Cir. 2018), which had held that knowingly supplying a service to someone who will use it to infringe copyrights is sufficient for contributory liability. That standard was rejected as inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent.