US Supreme Court asks Justice Department to review billion-dollar music piracy case against Cox

Nearly five years after major labels won a $1 billion music piracy verdict against Cox Communications, the US Supreme Court is signaling it may weigh in on the long-running copyright case.

In an order issued on Monday (25 November), the justices asked the Justice Department to consider whether the high court should impose the massive penalty, as Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and Warner Music Group ( WMG ) won in 2019 over allegations of widespread piracy by Cox users.

After an appeals court ordered a recalculation of the award earlier this year, both sides asked the Supreme Court to take over the case. The labels want the judges to reinstate the original verdict. Cox wants the high court to overturn it entirely.

Such petitions are always remote, as the Supreme Court takes less than 2% of the more than 7,000 cases it receives each year. But Monday's order — a “call for opinion of the Solicitor General,” or CVSG, in SCOTUS parlance — is a relatively rare step that shows the justices believe the issues in the case may be important enough for the court to address. .

UMG, SME and WMG sued Cox in 2018, seeking to hold the Internet giant itself liable for alleged wrongdoing by its users. The companies said Cox had ignored hundreds of thousands of infringement notices and had never permanently terminated a single subscriber accused of music theft.

ISPs like Cox are often protected from illegal downloading lawsuits by the Digital Copyright Act, or DMCA. But a judge ruled that Cox had lost that protection by failing to terminate people who were repeatedly accused of violating copyright law. After that immunity was removed, a jury found Cox liable in December 2019 for infringing 10,017 separate songs and awarded the labels more than $99,000 for each song, totaling up to $1 billion.

Earlier this year, a federal appeals court overturned that decision, ruling that aspects of the verdict were not supported by law. But the appeals court upheld other parties, and Cox still faces the possibility of a very large sentence when damages are recalculated.

Taking the case to the Supreme Court, Cox urged the judges to overturn the entire verdict. The company has issued dire warnings, arguing that the “draconian” approach taken in the case “threatens massive disruption” potentially forcing ISPs to shut down internet service to thousands of Americans.

“The stakes are enormous,” Cox's lawyers wrote. “This court should grant certiorari to prevent these cases from creating confusion, confusion and chaos on the Internet. Innovation, privacy and competition depend on it.”

In response, the labels called these arguments “disingenuous” and instead urged the court to undertake its own separate application to restore the entire verdict.

“This court should take Cox's concerns about terminating internet access with a healthy grain of salt,” lawyers for UMG, SME and WMG wrote. “During the time period at issue, Cox disconnected more than 600,000 subscribers for not paying their bills. When Cox's money is on the line, Cox clearly has no problem “irreparably cutting off” its customers “from society.”