When an ISP (Internet Service Provider) is notified that a user has committed copyright infringement, are they liable? The case of Cox Communications vs Sony Music Entertainment is coming to the Supreme Court.
What’s the dealio? After being served over 160,000 notifications of user infringement, “Cox Communications terminated only 32 subscribers for infringement while terminating more than 600,000 subscribers for failure to pay their bills, according to a brief opposing cert filed by Sony Music Entertainment and other music companies” (above linked article for citation). Cox Communications has repeatedly argued that terminating subscribers (by following THEIR OWN 13 strikes policy) would be too devastating to users, so has just ignored it. But, of course, if those same users just didn’t pay their bill, it’s amazing how fast CC is willing to devastate those users’ abilities to get online. Like everything in piracy, it’s all about the money. Big corporations, unless forced, will err on screwing everyone else over in favor of their making more money. It is the reason Libertarianism is such a joke (for those not in the know, Libertarians believe corporations hold the highest morals and will set the moral standard based on user responses to their actions).
As the Hollywood Reporter notes, the $1 billion in damages against Cox is no small amount. It will help set a precedent to stop ISPs from ignoring user violations. Past court decisions have found in favor of the creatives; UMG won a case that came out to $33,000 per infringement. It is helpful when the villain has a face and the one hurt has deep enough pockets to go after them. This is not the case with many indie creators, but we can hope that the Supreme Court falls in the favor of not abusing the law, and maybe that leads to change that allows smaller creators to take better action as well (bc we all know the Small Claims Court ain’t doing jack).
PS Feature AI image “ISPs ignoring the law, in a fantastical image” brought to you by giant dark felt bunnies turning their back on a law book growing out of roots … fascinating. I’m curious where they stole this association from.
