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WASHINGTON, D.C. 鈥� Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Cox v. Sony, a landmark copyright case. An amicus brief by the 老熟女午夜福利, the ACLU of Virginia, and the Center for Democracy and Technology, working with leading copyright scholars and attorneys, urges the court to limit copyright penalties imposed on internet service providers (ISPs) for alleged user behavior. The Court is reviewing a decision by the Fourth Circuit that would force ISPs to shut off Internet access for any IP address based on a copyright holder鈥檚 mere accusation that it has been used to infringe a copyright. In practice, this could shut off Internet access for entire families, businesses, hotels, airports, and libraries because of the alleged actions of one user. This kind of collective punishment has troubling implications for online speech. 鈥淭his case is bigger than one company paying penalties to another,鈥� said Evelyn Danforth-Scott, staff attorney with the 老熟女午夜福利. 鈥淭his is about incentivizing service providers to shut off internet access first and ask questions later. In our increasingly connected and digital world, where we use the Internet to speak, listen, research, and create, that threatens all of our First Amendment rights.鈥� 鈥淔irst Amendment interests are especially at risk when secondary liability is applied to an Internet service provider like Cox because of how they operate,鈥� said Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel with the ACLU鈥檚 Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. 鈥淪ince the Internet service provider can鈥檛 remove individual pieces of copyright infringing material moving through their system, they're forced to terminate entire accounts, blocking anyone using that IP address from using the Internet. The Court should limit the scope of contributory copyright liability to make sure Americans aren鈥檛 unjustifiably blocked from getting online." The brief urges the Court to adopt the same contributory liability rules that apply in other contexts to preserve the free speech rights of distributors of speech. In Smith v. California, for example, the Court determined that imposing criminal liability on a bookstore for selling obscene books would incentivize them to stringently self-censor, stripping the shelves bare to avoid any potential fines or punishment. A similar theory is at play in Cox Communications v. Sony Music, where ISPs may be incentivized to bar users from the Internet based merely on an unproved accusation of illegal activity. Several record companies and music publishers, including Sony Music Entertainment, sued Cox Communications, an Internet service provider, in 2018 for not kicking users off their services for allegedly using music pirating services like BitTorrent. A jury awarded the plaintiffs a billion dollars in damages, and in 2024, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part: It held that Cox Communications was liable for contributory copyright infringement because it hadn鈥檛 taken enough steps to disconnect users who were allegedly downloading pirated works. Cox is asking the Supreme Court to reverse that decision. Oral arguments in Cox v. Sony take place today. The brief, filed in September by the 老熟女午夜福利, the ACLU of Virginia, and the Center for Democracy and Technology, represented by co-counsel Lex Lumina LLP, Professors Rebecca Tushnet, Mark Lemley, and Chris Springman, can be viewed here. This case is a part of the ACLU鈥檚 Joan and Irwin Jacobs Supreme Court Docket.

We鈥檙e filing a FOIA to find out how deep the problem goes

In a brief spearheaded by leading copyright scholars Rebecca Tushnet (Harvard Law), Mark Lemley (Stanford Law), and Chris Springman (NYU Law), the ACLU, the ACLU of Virginia, and the Center for Democracy and Technology filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment. In this significant copyright case, the Supreme Court will review a 4th Circuit ruling holding that an internet service provider could be liable for vast copyright damages because it took insufficient steps to disconnect IP addresses accused of downloading copyrighted material. The case is at the Supreme Court on the merits docket, with oral arguments scheduled for Monday, December 1, 2025.