Supreme Court Seen as Likely to Overturn Fourth Circuit’s ruling in Cox v. Sony
But it’s not clear what new standard justices will lay out.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 29, 2025 – The Supreme Court is likely to remand the Fourth Circuit decision finding Cox Communications partially liable for the copyright infringement of its subscribers, music industry officials predicted.
But they’re not sure what new standard the court will lay out.
“The court is looking for a way out,” said Zvi Rosen, an associate law professor at University of New Hampshire. “They’re looking for a way that Cox doesn't get a get-out-of-jail-free card, but they’re also concerned, perhaps unduly, about breaking the internet.”
Rosen spoke at a Hudson Institute webinar on Dec. 15. He and the other participants submitted amicus briefs in support of the record labels suing Cox.
“I think I do agree with Zvi that there’s going to be a remand,” said Ben Sheffner, a senior attorney at the Motion Picture Association. “Although I would say I’m cautiously optimistic that they could come out with a standard under which Cox, or defendants who behave similarly, would still be able to be found liable.”
Led by Sony Music Entertainment, more than 50 labels are suing Cox for not taking subscribers offline quickly enough after receiving multiple notices they were pirating music on the internet. The Virginia jury had decided Cox was on the hook for $1 billion in damages, which the Fourth Circuit later threw out while maintaining Cox had some level of liability by providing the connections used for infringement.
Cox has argued to the Supreme Court that it shouldn’t be liable at all, even if it knows swathes of its subscribers pirate routinely and does nothing. The Justice Department and consumer advocacy groups agree. Sony, for its part, has maintained ISPs should have to cut off repeat infringers at some point.
At oral arguments on Dec. 1, justices did not appear inclined to side entirely with Cox, which multiple justices said would give ISPs no reason to mitigate copyright infringement at all. But they also aren’t seen as eager to side with Sony because of Cox’s argument that it could have to deny service to hospitals or universities.
“Neither side provided an easy off ramp for the court to work out a compromise,” Sheffner said. “They each took fairly hardline positions.”
'We are being put to two extremes here...'
Indeed Justice Sonia Sotomayor lamented near the end of arguments that “We are being put to two extremes here… How do we announce a rule that deals with those two extremes?”
Optimum, formerly Altice, and Verizon are also fighting similar copyright infringement cases in which large sums of money are at stake. Both have been put on hold as courts await justices’ holding in the Cox case.
The case is also significant for the music and movie industries, which fear being unable to address people sharing copyrighted material online.
Piracy “is not something that disappeared in the streaming era never to be heard from again,” said Jake Tracer, senior vice president of litigation and legal affairs at the Recording Industry Association of America. “This is something that happens every day at a massive, almost unknowable scale.”
The scope is hard to pin down, he said, because users on BitTorrent, the popular file-sharing protocol, automatically start uploading files to other users as they download them.
A June report from research firm Muso found that visits to music and movie piracy sites were each down about 18 percent in 2024, but still numbered about 14 billion and 24 billion respectively.
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