In Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entm’t, the Supreme Court (9-0) just handed down a major ruling.
The Court held: “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.”
Knowledge of infringement by users of a service is not enough to hold the service provider liable.
Instead, the service provider must have intent: “The provider of a service is contributorily liable for the user’s infringement only if it intended that the provided service be used for infringement.”
“The intent required for contributory liability can be shown only if [1] the party induced the infringement or [2] the provided service is tailored to that infringement.”
Both are very high standards to meet.
The Court also relied on and, in effect, reaffirmed its approaches in Sony and Grokster.
The Supreme Court’s Cox decision will likely be favorable to AI companies in their defense against contributory infringement claims in the many lawsuits filed against them.
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