Cox Deliberately Aided Infringement, Music Labels Tell SCOTUS

Cox Communications' arguments that it's being sued for secondary copyright infringement liability merely for providing services capable of infringing use are wrong, Sony Music and other music labels told the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday. In a respondent brief (docket 24-171), the labels said Cox "made a deliberate and egregious decision" to maximize profits by supplying habitual offenders with the means for massive copyright infringement, knowing they would keep infringing. "While Cox waxes poetic about the centrality of internet access to modern life," it sidesteps the fact that it readily terminates subscribers for nonpayment, the music labels said. They added that SCOTUS has long held that companies providing services to customers with the expectation the services will be used to infringe are contributorily liable if the customers do so. Cox "identifies no reason to disturb that longstanding and commonsense rule."