Sony to Supreme Court: Cox Should Have Taken Repeat Infringers Offline

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2025 – Cox Communications is trying to avoid liability for its customers’ music piracy by arguing that ISPs could be forced to shut off connections with many non-infringing users to get out of lawsuits. The music industry is telling the Supreme Court not to buy it.

Led by Sony Music Entertainment, a group of more than 50 record labels had sued the cable operator in 2018 for not taking repeat offenders offline quickly enough. A Virginia jury issued a $1 billion verdict against Cox, but the Fourth Circuit tossed the massive fine while ruling the ISP still had some liability.

The Supreme Court agreed this summer to hear Cox’s appeal – the company wants no liability whatsoever – and on Friday oral arguments were scheduled for Monday, Dec. 1.

The case “has nothing to do with Cox’s professed concerns about hair-trigger terminations, or unknowing misuse of Cox’s services, let alone about innocent grandmothers or hospitals,” the record labels wrote in a Wednesday brief. “If Cox had merely declined to terminate service when it had a credible reason to doubt that the subscriber was responsible for the infringement, or employed a more graduated approach toward institutions that provide critical services, then this case would not be here.”

Instead, the labels argued Cox consistently kept on subscribers that it knew were likely to keep illegally sharing and downloading copyrighted music simply because they brought in cash, while at the same time cutting off hundreds of thousands of customers for nonpayment.

“While Cox stokes fears of innocent grandmothers and hospitals being tossed off the internet for someone else’s infringement, Cox put on zero evidence that any subscriber here fit that bill,” the labels wrote. “By its own admission, the subscribers here were ‘habitual offenders’ Cox chose to retain because, unlike the vast multitude cut off for late payment, they contributed to Cox’s bottom line.”

Cox and its roughly 6 million subscribers are in the process of being acquired by cable giant Charter for $34.5 billion. About 57,000 subscribers are alleged to have pirated about 10,000 works in 2013 and 2014.

The pro-Cox side

Cox has argued it should not face any liability for keeping its customers online in the face of repeated infringement notices. 

“Under the Fourth Circuit’s theory, Cox could avoid liability only by throwing entire homes, coffee shops, hotels, military barracks, and regional ISPs off of the internet,” the ISP wrote in an August brief to the high court. “Innocent users and infringers alike would be severed from service that is integral to nearly every aspect of modern life.”

The Trump administration, the broadband industry, and several consumer advocacy groups have also weighed in on Cox’s side. They agreed with the company that if an ISP could be held liable for its users’ piracy, it would create disruptive situations where swathes of users are taken offline as companies try to avoid massive financial penalties.

Continuing to provide broadband “even to a user previously accused of infringement, is no more an ‘affirmative step’ toward future infringement than the power company continuing to provide the electricity that powers the user’s laptop,” Public Knowledge told justices in a Sept. 10 brief. “A contrary rule would elevate a single, unvetted allegation to a legal mandate, creating strong incentives to over-enforce.”

Separately, Frontier settled a copyright suit with record labels this summer and another with movie companies earlier this year.

Altice and Verizon are also currently fighting copyright cases where hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars are at stake. Both have been put on hold as courts await justices’ holding in the Cox case.