GoKawiilTwo weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled that ISP giant Cox Communications couldn't be held liable for a billion-dollar judgment over music piracy in a case brought by Sony. On Tuesday, by sending another case back to a circuit court involving Grande Communications and music companies, including Sony, for reconsideration, the court seems to be reinforcing the idea that internet service providers can't be held liable for their customers' copyright infringement.
The Supreme Court relied on the precedent from the first case to send the second back, reinforcing the earlier decision.
Grande Communications is a Texas-based subsidiary of Astound Business Solutions.
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A Sony Music representative didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two cases back-to-back appear to suggest that copyright owners, like music companies, can't expect to be compensated by broadband providers (including, presumably, wireless companies such as AT&T and Verizon) that have customers who engage in intellectual property theft across their networks.
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What this means for ISPs and customers
Eric Goldman, an associate dean for research and professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, says these decisions buck prior cases.
"The Cox ruling upended decades of fairly well-settled precedent without any clear explanation of why the Supreme Court chose to reset the rules," he said. "At minimum, the Supreme Court made clear that copyright owners have overreached with their copyright claims against ISPs for user-caused infringement. Thus, the Supreme Court's message to copyright owners is that they need to be more reasonable and less demanding in their dealings with ISPs."
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