Cox's Copyright Infringement Case and ISP's Argument in the US

TapTechNews September 21, Sony and other record companies accused Cox in 2018 of failing to sufficiently crack down on infringement in its network. In December 2019, the district court ruled that Cox needed to pay 1 billion US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 7.055 billion Chinese yuan).

Subsequently, Cox partially won in the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and was thus exempted from the 1 billion US dollar compensation. The judge determined that Cox did not constitute indirect infringement because it did not directly profit from the infringement committed by users of its cable broadband network. But the appellate court upheld the joint infringement ruling and ordered a new compensation trial. Cox petitioned the Supreme Court last month to ask it to rehear this case.

This week, the four major US ISPs (AlticeUSA, FrontierCommunications, Lumen and Verizon) stated in a brief submitted to the US Supreme Court that ISPs should not be forced to monitor copyright infringement issues in their networks, and they believe that the legal issues raised in this case are extremely important for the future of the Internet.

The four major ISPs believe that large-scale terminations of Internet users accused of piracy will harm innocent people by depriving homes, schools, hospitals and businesses of Internet access.