Photo Credit: Altice USA
Several parties, including Altice USA, signed amicus briefs in support of Cox Communications’ petition filed last month with the Supreme Court.
In Cox Communications’ ongoing battle with Sony and other major labels, several parties have signed amicus briefs in support of Cox’s petition filed last month with the Supreme Court. The petition asked the high court to review the increasingly complex copyright infringement case that could potentially affect the internet access of Americans nationwide.
The issue stems from a case brought against internet service provider (ISP) Cox Communications by Sony Corp. and other music industry groups back in 2018. That case was just one of many levied against ISPs by music labels for copyright infringement committed by users through online piracy, in which the labels assert the ISPs are liable.
Now, the two amicus briefs signed by Professor Alfred C. Yen and Altice USA — which quietly settled its own copyright infringement case with BMG last month — as well as Frontier Communications, Lumen Technologies, and Verizon, urge the high court to “review this significant copyright infringement case that could jeopardize internet access for all Americans.”
“Sony is attempting to hold internet service providers like Cox and its peers responsible for instances of piracy and copyright infringement committed by individual users,” a representative close to the matter told Digital Music News.
Cox filed its petition last month asking the US Supreme Court to review the decision it made back in February that the ISP committed secondary copyright infringement by failing to address user piracy. At the time, though the Court upheld part of the jury verdict that held Cox liable, it threw out a $1 billion award for the labels, which included Universal Music alongside Sony Music. A new trial was ordered to determine the amount of damages Cox would owe.
But Cox argues that the only way it could avoid liability under the Court’s decision would be to terminate internet service for “entire households, coffee shops, hospitals, universities, and even regional [ISPs] […] merely because some unidentified person was previously alleged to have used the connection to infringe.”
