March 25 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Cox Communications on Wednesday in a case questioning the extent to which Internet service providers are responsible for policing music privacy.
The court said record companies, including Sony Music Entertainment, cannot expect ISPs to disconnect customers who illegally download music using their service. The justices voted unanimously for Cox, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing for the majority.
"Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights," he wrote.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote their own concurring opinion, saying Thomas' ruling is too narrow in its judgment of Cox's secondary liability "without any meaningful explanation."
"Plaintiffs cannot prove that Cox had the requisite intent to aid copyright infringement for Cox to be liable on a common-law aiding-and-abetting theory," Sotomayor wrote.
