Tech Vs. Copyright Script Gets a Rewrite in Wake of Supreme Court Ruling

The three labels, which were also parties in Cox, filed a pair of joint stipulations with the courts hearing the Verizon and Altice cases, respectively, voluntarily dismissing the lawsuits.

The Court’s majority opinion in Cox, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, held that mere knowledge that a service was being used for piracy is not sufficient to establish liability for copyright infringement on the part of the service providers. A service would need to have been designed specifically to facilitate piracy or with the intent to encourage piracy to be liable, the Court said. The ruling was unanimous, with two justices signing on to a concurring opinion that found for Cox on slightly different grounds.

The ruling, which legal experts say meaningfully narrows the definition of “contributory liability” by service providers in copyright cases, was an immediate game-changer. The Supreme Court itself quickly vacated a ruling against Grande Communications in a similar case brought by Warner and Sony Music, sending it back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for reconsideration under the new, narrower liability standard. YouTube stream-ripper Yout.com seized on the ruling in a case brought against it by the Recording Industry Association. And Meta hinted it is considering embracing Cox to fend off the book-piracy torrenting charge still pending against it in a class action case brought by authors.

The fallout did not end there, however. The ruling reignited interest on Capitol Hill in legislation to prevent internet users from accessing websites found to be hosting or providing pirated content. Bills ostensibly targeting foreign piracy sites have been kicking around in both the House and the Senate for a while without really going anywhere. But in the wake of the Cox ruling, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), sponsors respectively of separate House and Senate site-blocking bills, have reportedly begun working together to draft unified, bi-cameral legislation that would require ISPs and DNS resolvers to block foreign piracy sites when ordered to by a court.

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The purported Lofgren-Tillis bill appears to resemble regulatory regimes already in place in the European Union. The Paris Judicial Court, for instance, last month ordered ISPs, VPN providers and DNS resolvers, including Cloudflare and Google, to block access to 35 illegal sports-streaming sites in a series of simultaneous rulings. The inclusion of VPNs and DNS resolvers in the order was intended to close off the most popular routes for circumventing ISP-level blocks.

Enlisting DNS providers in the battle against online piracy has sparked controversy in the U.S. in the past, however. In 2011, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) were introduced in the House and Senate, respectively, with broad bipartisan support. The two bills would have empowered courts to order DNS resolvers to block access to foreign sites found to be facilitating piracy. The bills derailed in 2012, however, in the face of widespread protests from web users and tech supporters that included a coordinated, day-long blackout of hundreds of websites to highlight the opponents’ claim that interfering with the DNS system could disrupt a basic functionality of the web.

Whether the reported Lofgren-Tillis bill ever makes it to a vote is uncertain. Sen. Tillis is retiring from Congress at the end of the current term and the remaining 2026 legislative calendar is limited due to the approaching midterm elections. But the effects of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Cox v. Sony will continue to be felt, in courtrooms, and in the broader policy debate over how best to balance the interests of technology providers, copyright owners and consumers.