"US Copyright Office Director Shira Perlmutter said the Supreme Court put “little thought” into the implications of its recent decision absolving an internet service provider for not shuttering accounts of users who repeatedly pirated music.
"The throwing out of many, many decades of copyright law on secondary liability so quickly and with so little analysis was shocking," Perlmutter said Friday at a Stanford Law School event."
Jeffrey D. Dyess, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP , The National Law Review ; The Supreme Court’s Decision on Indirect Internet Copyright Liability Could Have Far-Reaching Effects
"On March 25, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark decision that will reshape not only how copyright law applies to the internet for years to come, but could impact other areas of intellectual property law as well. In Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, the Court held that internet service providers cannot be held indirectly liable for their customers’ copyright infringement simply because the ISPs knew the infringement was happening but failed to prevent it. The decision reversed and remanded a billion-dollar judgment against ISP Cox Communications and drew a more clearly defined line around secondary copyright liability."
BETTY GEDLU , Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Supreme Court Agrees With EFF: ISPs Don't Have To Be Copyright Enforcers
"In Cox v. Sony, the Court reversed a Fourth Circuit decision that had upheld a billion-dollar verdict against internet provider Cox Communications. Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas explained that contributory liability is limited to two situations: when a defendant actively induces infringement, or when it provides a product or service that it knows is tailored for infringement.
This framework closely tracks the approach EFF urged in our amicus brief. As we explained, courts should look to patent law for guidance in defining the boundaries of secondary copyright liability. Patent law recognizes liability where a defendant actively induces infringement, or distributes a product knowing that it lacks substantial non-infringing uses. The Court’s opinion adopts that same basic structure."
Eric Mack, Fox News ; Supreme Court tosses $1B copyright verdict in record companies' battle over illegal internet downloads
"The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Wednesday that internet providers are not liable for copyright infringement by their users, delivering an opinion in Cox v. Sony and tossing a $1 billion verdict."
Ann E. Marimow, The New York Times ; Supreme Court Sides With Internet Provider in Copyright Fight Over Pirated Music
Leading music labels sued Cox Communications for failing to terminate accounts of subscribers flagged for distributing copyrighted music.
"The Supreme Court unanimously said on Wednesday that a major internet provider could not be held liable for the piracy of thousands of songs online in a closely watched copyright clash."
SCOTUSblog; Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment
"Holding: Internet service provider Cox Communications neither induced its users’ infringement of copyrighted works nor provided a service tailored to infringement, and accordingly Cox is not contributorily liable for the infringement of Sony’s copyrights.
Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Thomas on March 25, 2026. Justice Sotomayor wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, joined by Justice Jackson."
Omar Gallaga, CNET ; A Long-Running AI Copyright Question Gets an Answer as Supreme Court Stays Mum
The man behind the AI-generated image in question reflects on what he calls a "philosophical milestone."
"A legal battle over AI copyright that has gone on for more than a decade may have reached its end, with the US Supreme Court declining to hear a case involving AI-generated visual art...
In an email to CNET, Thaler said that although the court declined to hear his appeal, "I see this moment as a philosophical milestone rather than a defeat."
While he's unsure if legal action will continue, Thaler says he's still certain that the law on copyright, as written, is intended to exclude nonhuman inventors.
"By bringing DABUS into the legal system, I confronted a question long confined to theory: whether invention and creativity must remain tied to humans or whether autonomous computational processes could genuinely originate ideas," Thaler said."
Blake Brittain, Reuters; US Supreme Court declines to hear dispute over copyrights for AI-generated material
"The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to take up the issue of whether art generated by artificial intelligence can be copyrighted under U.S. law, turning away a case involving a computer scientist from Missouri who was denied a copyright for a piece of visual art made by his AI system.
Plaintiff Stephen Thaler had appealed to the justices after lower courts upheld a U.S. Copyright Office decision that the AI-crafted visual art at issue in the case was ineligible for copyright protection because it did not have a human creator."
Tierney Sneed, CNN; Supreme Court adopts automated recusal software to avoid ethics conflicts
"The Supreme Court said Tuesday that it will start using software to assist in justices’ decisions to recuse themselves from cases that present a potential conflict of interest.
A brief press release issued by the court described an electronic matching process already used by some lower courts to compare a case’s parties to lists judges assemble of individuals and organizations they have ties to. A 2023 code of conduct statement from the justices said they were considering adopting such a tool themselves.
“This software will be used to run automated recusal checks by comparing information about parties and attorneys in a case with lists created by each Justice’s chambers,” the press release said. “The system was designed and created by the Court’s Office of Information Technology in cooperation with the Court’s Legal Office and Clerk’s Office.”"
A decision foreclosing nonhuman authorship for Stephen Thaler’s Creativity Machine didn’t conflict with any in other circuits or raise complicated questions about protections for artificial intelligence-assisted work by human authors, the Jan. 23 filing said."
Lisa Peet, Library Journal; Supreme Court Will Not Hear Little v. Llano County
"THE LONG GAME
While this is a disheartening development for the plaintiffs, Dan Novack, VP and Associate General Counsel at PRH, feels that a favorable precedent could still be set at the Supreme Court level. PRH has several cases in play, including Penguin Random House LLC v. Robbins, challenging Iowa’s SF496 in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Penguin Random House LLC v. Gibson , fighting Florida’s HB 1069 in the Eleventh Circuit. Both are scheduled to be heard in early 2026.
Given that it only takes about one percent of the cases put forward to it every year, “when there is a traffic jam of cases, as there is in this emerging area of law, it’s really not uncommon for the Supreme Court to sit back and let it play out,” Novack told LJ. If the other cases are also decided against the freedom to read, the Supreme Court may not see the need to step in. But if rulings are split, it may choose to take on one of the cases.
If the Supreme Court had taken Little v. Llano, it could have resulted in a positive ruling coming sooner. But “I’m taking the longer view that it’s good to be presenting more options to the Court, and if they were to take a Penguin Random House case, I feel very strong about the merits of those cases,” said Novack.
Even Llano County’s attorney, Jonathan Mitchell, in his brief in opposition to the writ of certiorari asking the Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit ruling, stated that “The Court should wait and allow these [circuit] courts to weigh in on whether and how the Speech Clause applies to library-book removals before jumping in to resolve this issue.”
Novack acknowledges that this decision is a hard one for Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. “Something went very wrong in the Fifth Circuit,” he said. But PRH and its council are committed to a multi-year fight that could potentially reach the Supreme Court and set precedent for the right to read throughout the United States.
“Although our lawsuit has come to a disappointing end,” Leila Green Little, lead plaintiff in the case, told LJ, “I am encouraged by the many people across the country who continue our fight in the courtrooms, their local libraries, and our state and federal legislative chambers.”"
and , Newsweek; Supreme Court Won’t Hear Texas Library Case: List of Banned Books
"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to a Texas county’s removal of 17 books from its public libraries, leaving in place a lower court ruling that allowed the purge.
The books targeted by officials span topics including sexuality, gender identity, racism and even juvenile humor.
Residents who sued argued the removals violated their First Amendment right to receive information, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that claim.
The Supreme Court’s decision means the ruling now applies across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi."
Ronald Mann, SCOTUSblog; Court seems dubious of billion-dollar judgment for copyright infringement
"My basic reaction to the argument is that the justices would be uncomfortable with accepting the broadest version of the arguments that Cox has presented to it (that the ISP is protected absent an affirmative act of malfeasance), but Sony’s position seems so unpalatable to them that a majority is most unlikely to coalesce around anything that is not a firm rejection of the lower court’s ruling against Cox. I wouldn’t expect that ruling to come soon, but I don’t think there is much doubt about what it will say."
Blake Brittain , Reuters; US Supreme Court wrestles with copyright dispute between Cox and record labels
"The U.S. Supreme Court grappled on Monday with a bid by Cox Communications to avoid financial liability in a major music copyright lawsuit by record labels that accused the internet service provider of enabling its customers to pirate thousands of songs.
The justices appeared skeptical of Cox's assertion that its mere awareness of user piracy could not justify holding it liable for copyright infringement. They also questioned whether holding Cox liable for failing to cut off infringers could impact a wide range of innocent internet users."
C-SPAN ; Cox Communications v. Sony Music Oral Argument
"The Supreme Court heard oral argument in Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment, a case about Sony's lawsuit against internet service provider Cox Communications, and whether such companies may be held liable for their users' copyright infringements. Sony and other record companies and publishers sued Cox, alleging it was liable for its subscribers downloading and distributing copyrighted songs. A federal jury found Cox liable and awarded $1 billion in statutory damages. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the jury's finding of willful infringement but vacated the damages award. The Trump administration supported Cox in the dispute and, along with attorney Joshua Rosenkranz, argued on behalf of the company. Veteran Supreme Court attorney Paul Clement argued on behalf of the respondent, Sony Music."
Ann E. Marimow , The New York Times; Supreme Court to Hear Copyright Battle Over Online Music Piracy
"The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday in a closely watched copyright clash testing whether internet providers can be held liable for the piracy of thousands of songs online.
Leading music labels and publishers who represent artists ranging from Bob Dylan to Beyoncé sued Cox Communications in 2018, saying it had failed to terminate the internet connections of subscribers who had been repeatedly flagged for illegally downloading and distributing copyrighted music.
At issue is whether providers like Cox can be held legally responsible and be required to pay steep damages — a billion dollars or more — if it knows that customers are pirating the music but does not take sufficient steps to terminate their internet access."
Bruce E. Boyden, Marquette University Law School ; Contributory Copyright Liability Back Before the Supreme Court
"The case itself is no trifling matter. Cox, a cable company that provides broadband internet access to its subscribers, is appealing a $1 billion jury verdict holding it liable for assisting some of those subscribers in engaging in copyright infringement. The case arose from an effort by record labels and music publishers to stem the tide of peer-to-peer filesharing of music files by sending notices of infringement to access providers such as Cox. The DMCA bars liability for access providers as long as they reasonably implemented a repeat infringer policy. But who’s a repeat infringer? The notices were an effort to get access providers to take action by giving them the knowledge of repeat infringements necessary to trigger the policies.
According to the evidence presented at trial, however, Cox was extremely resistant to receiving or taking action in response to the notices. The most colorful bit of evidence (and yet another example of how loose emails sink ships) was from the head of the Cox abuse and safety team in charge of enforcing user policies, who screamed in a team-wide email: “F the dmca!!!” (This was followed by an email from a higher-level executive on the chain: “Sorry to be Paranoid Panda here, but please stop sending out e-mails saying F the law….”) The Fourth Circuit ultimately held that because Cox didn’t reasonably implement its repeat infringer policy, it lost its statutory immunity, and then at trial the jury found Cox contributorily liable for the infringements that it had been notified about, which the Fourth Circuit affirmed.
The question before the Court is whether the lower courts applied the right test for contributory copyright liability, or applied it correctly. (There’s a second question, about the standard for willfulness in determining damages, but I didn’t address that one.) There’s a couple of things that make this issue difficult to disentangle; one has to do with the history of contributory infringement doctrine, and the other is a technical issue about what, exactly, is being challenged on appeal."
Maureen Groppe , USA TODAY; $1 billion Supreme Court music piracy case could affect internet users
"The entertainment industry’s seemingly losing battle to stop music from being illegally copied and shared in the digital age hits the Supreme Court on Dec. 1 in a case both sides say could have huge consequences for both the industry and internet users.
A decision by the high court that fails to hold internet service providers accountable for piracy on their networks would “spell disaster for the music community,” according to groups representing musicians and other entertainers.
But Cox Communications, the largest private broadband company in America, argues too tough a standard could “jeopardize internet access for all Americans.”"
MICHAEL P. GOODYEAR, Slate; The Supreme Court Is About to Hear a Case That Could Rewrite Internet Access
"Imagine losing internet access because someone in your household downloaded pirated music. We rely on the internet to learn, discover job opportunities, navigate across cities and the countryside, shop for the latest trends, file our taxes, and much more. Now all of that could be gone in an instant.
That is not a dystopian fantasy, but a real possibility raised by a case the Supreme Court will hear on Monday. In Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, the justices will decide whether an internet provider can be held responsible for failing to terminate subscribers accused of repeat copyright infringements. The ruling could determine whether access to the internet—today’s lifeline for education, work, and civic life—can be taken away as punishment for digital misdeeds. Cox’s indifference to repeat infringement is condemnable, but a sweeping ruling could harshly punish thousands for one company’s bad faith."
