Sony V. Cox Decision Reversed

Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, 607 U.S. ___ (2026)

Docket No. 24-171

Decided: March 25, 2026

Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court. Countless people use the Internet for legal activities, but some use it to illegally share copyrighted works, such as songs and movies. The Copyright Act authorizes copyright owners to sue these copyright infringers. 17 U. S. C. §§501(a), 504(a). In this case, however, instead of suing those infringers, the copyright owners sued petitioners, Cox Communications, Inc., and its subsidiary, who provided the Internet connections that the infringers used.

They contended that Cox was itself liable for copyright infringement because it continued to provide known infringers with Internet access. Based on this theory of infringement, respondents, Sony Music Entertainment and other major copyright owners, secured a billion-dollar verdict against Cox. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed that because Cox provided Internet service to known infringers, it was a willful infringer itself.

Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights. Accordingly, we reverse.

Under the Copyright Act, copyright owners have the exclusive rights to copy, distribute, and digitally transmit their copyrighted works. §106. The Court has recognized two categories of secondary copyright liability: “contributory” liability and “vicarious” liability. This case concerns contributory liability. The provider of a service is contributorily liable for a user’s infringement if it intended its service to be used for infringement. To establish that a provider intended its service to be used for infringement, a copyright owner must show one of two things. First, it can show that a party affirmatively “induc[ed]” the infringement. Or, second, it can show that the party sold a service tailored to infringement.

Cox Communications, Inc., is an Internet service provider that serves about 6 million subscribers. Internet service providers, such as Cox, have limited knowledge about how their Internet services are used and who uses them. They do know which IP address corresponds to which subscriber’s account, but they cannot distinguish one individual user from another. Given the difficulty of pursuing individual infringers, Sony attempted to enlist Internet service providers such as Cox to help it enforce its copyrights. The parties disagree about how to characterize Cox’s efforts to protect Sony’s copyrights. Sony points out that Cox terminated only 32 subscribers for infringement during the claim period, even as it terminated hundreds of thousands of subscribers for nonpayment.