RCN Fires Back Against the Major Labels, Citing ‘Cox v. Sony’

Photo Credit: Chris Robert

Cox v. Sony Music is factoring into yet another copyright dispute: RCN has cited the unanimous Supreme Court decision in its marathon legal battle with the major labels.

That ugly courtroom confrontation’s been in motion for the better part of a decade, and unsurprisingly, the core claims closely resemble those seen in a number of other ISP infringement cases.

At the intersection of both points, RCN evidently believes the time is right to invoke Cox v. Sony. As we’ve broken down in greater detail, the nation’s highest court found that service providers can be held contributorily liable only if they induce user infringement or tailor their core offerings to enable infringement.

And the precedent is a big deal indeed for internet companies accused of (and in some instances ordered to pay millions for) failing to adequately respond to users’ repeat piracy.

“Like this case, Cox involved claims for contributory copyright infringement brought by the major U.S. record labels against an internet service provider, on grounds that the provider did not terminate the internet access of subscribers accused of music piracy,” RCN wrote to the court before exploring adjacent elements of the decision.

Meanwhile, beyond the decision itself, RCN also took the opportunity to reiterate that the Supreme Court had vacated what was at one time a $47 million copyright verdict against Grande Communications. (Grande and RCN have been operating under the Astound Broadband banner for years now.)

With that, time will tell how the presiding judge responds to RCN’s concise “notice of new controlling authority.” In the bigger picture, it’d be difficult to understate the litigation impact of Cox v. Sony.

That refers, most immediately, to other ISP infringement showdowns. Having previously requested a response delay, the majors and Altice have until tomorrow to tell the court where their case stands. An identical cutoff is in place in a different copyright clash involving Verizon.

Next, Meta’s also underscoring the significance of Cox amid a push to dismiss two copyright complaints submitted by Epidemic Sound. As of today, a hearing on the dismissal attempt is expected for June 18th.

And with X eyeing dismissal in an infringement action levied by music publishers, the case is on pause. Major music publishers have also made changes to their lawsuit against Anthropic in the wake of Cox, which stream-ripper Yout is emphasizing in its RIAA showdown.

Finally – and this list isn’t comprehensive – Udio is looking to capitalize on the Supreme Court decision in a suit filed against it by artists.