$1 billion Supreme Court music piracy case could affect internet users

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: USA Today

Nov. 30, 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET


WASHINGTON − The entertainment industry’s seemingly losing battle to stop music from being illegally copied and shared in the digital age hits the Supreme Court on Dec. 1 in a case both sides say could have huge consequences for both the industry and internet users.

A decision by the high court that fails to hold internet service providers accountable for piracy on their networks would “spell disaster for the music community,” according to groups representing musicians and other entertainers.

But Cox Communications, the largest private broadband company in America, argues too tough a standard could “jeopardize internet access for all Americans.”

The world's leading recording companies and music publishers say Cox helped 60,000 customers distribute more than 10,000 copyrighted works for free, contributing to a problem that robs the industry of billions of dollars a year.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/11/30/supreme-court-case-music-piracy-cox-sony/87481019007/

[mpcamb]

1. Cox Communications... argues too tough a standard could "jeopardize internet access..."

Let's start with the noton that Cox is ia company in business to make oodles of money.
The idea that this is about their altuism to America slaps reality in the face.
They're a company trying to bulldoze money from artists and owners for free.

[highplainsdem]

2. The piracy is apparently a large part of their business:

At one point, peer-to-peer file sharing – the most common way music is pirated – made up 21% of all traffic on Cox’s network, according to Sony.

[Mawspam2]

6. Wait a minute. You mean to tell me Napster is still around?

I moved on to Spotify years ago.

[ToxMarz]

8. The brand name still exists, but the original (illegal) p2p sharing was shut down long ago.

The name and trademarks were purchased and it is was relaunched as a legitimate streaming service. Stick with Spotify if you like it.

[FakeNoose]

14. Much of the file sharing happens on the bit torrents these days

Limewire, Napster and that generation of pirating are long gone...

At least half the problem of filesharing/pirating is the disparity in defining what "piracy" actually is. Some countries are extremely over-protective of copyright ownerships, while other countries offer almost no protections at all.

Our US Supreme Court deciding what is illegal for American platforms is almost irrelevant to the Eastern Europeans, Asians and elsewhere.

[LudwigPastorius]

9. But, it's OK to steal music because musicians make their money selling T shirts.

[Jose Garcia]

13. A lot of that is likely pirated movies and TV shows

Those files are much larger.

[ToxMarz]

3. This won't really affect internet users, it will affect Cox

The problems within the music industry and fair compensation to artists have existed as long as there has been a music industry. This case goes back 15 or more years years when illegal P2P sharing was rampant (partley due to industries resistance to streaming music because they hadn't figured the best way to monetize it themselves). Illegal p2p music sharing and networks are kind of dinosaurs anymore. Cox has already lost and has a judgment against them since 2019. This is just them appealing. They can afford it .

[GreenWave]

4. They already stole the Internet and gave it to AI.

Nobody's intellectual properties were respected.

[JohnnyRingo]

5. The RIAA never gives up and I'm sick of hearing them.

The artists deserve proper compensation, but that's not what this is about. The RIAA is a lobby for the record labels and they want more. They want you to pay more every time you hear a song.

I remember when they sued Philips to stop them from making cassette recorders. They claimed that "home recording is killing music". The SC ruled that we can make a backup copy of any album we own. They tried the same thing with CD burners in computers, but instead switched us to streaming subscriptions. Even better for them.

Now they decided that isn't enough and are approaching a court that may well decide in their favor, driving up the price of music subscriptions across the board..

[Blasphemer]

11. I agree. People are turning back to piracy because the streaming model is flawed...

You have to pay too much for content on an ever growing number of platforms & they are making it harder to share subscriptions. On top of that, we now pay for privilege of seeing ads.

[Polybius]

7. I hope the industry loses and the people win

As a big Napster fan back in the day, what was done to it in court disgusted me.

[moniss]

10. The folly in all of the Napster defenders was them claiming they

were just sharing a file with a pal just like making a backup tape. The problem for Napster was that was largely false and you had people "sharing" a file with 10,000 people for example and the idea that was just "pals" was ludicrous on its' face. Napster became Fencester. A place for stolen material to be transferred to others. Those were the wild and completely lawless early days of the internet and things like Fencester had been allowed to go on because politicians, law enforcement and much of society used to shrug off fraud and theft by saying "it's just the internet and if you go there you should expect things like that". Well the "internet" is now integral to virtually every aspect of our daily lives but the charlatans and excuses largely continue.

Any single person can have hundreds of different e-mail addresses and identities based on those addresses and be on the internet with a different site for each one conducting fraudulent business by charging people but never shipping the product. If the heat gets too bad they just shut the site down and go on their merry way while law enforcement still largely says "well that's the internet for you and people should know they are taking a risk." But if you were a door to door salesman going through a neighborhood and giving one house a different identity than another the cops would have you in cuffs and the D.A. would have you up on charges. To them that's "different" because someone is physically present committing the fraud. But that is pure BS on their part because of the huge amount of commerce that is done online today spearheaded by major retailers etc. The fact is that online fraud has been and is still so huge and prevalent that, with the exception of very big cases, the crooks know that law enforcement isn't going to be able to really go after the thousands and thousands of frauds constantly operating on the internet and taking thousands of dollars here and there and then folding and popping up the next day under a new name and e-mail address.

Copyright exists for a reason and some people fail to realize that an artist might spend hundreds of hours and many thousands of dollars on instruments, paying collaborators etc. on just one song. Copyright exists in order for them to be compensated for their work/costs. Fencester and others tried making the claim "well by file-sharing to thousands it will build up their fan base for their live shows." But not all artists tour or are stage performers and the Fencester argument was always one of "we want to do whatever we want and you should all just adapt to it." In the end it simply boils down to people had legal rights for compensation based on laws and licensing and others didn't want to have to pay for a vinyl album, single, CD, DVD, tape etc.

Years back before streaming I used to haul new release DVD's to the distribution warehouses. The theft of those releases and copying and selling the pirated material online had gotten so bad that there were special locks on the semi trailer doors and only certain security personnel could open them and those people were armed and the entire operation was under constant video surveillance. Every forklift that moved was on video. No driver was allowed out of the truck. It was like a Fort Knox operation. All because some crooks had been stealing and making big money online from people willing to engage in receiving stolen property. But of course the ones buying the pirated movie DVD would say "it's just a DVD I paid $10 for. It's not like it's a big deal."

[FakeNoose]

15. This is what happens on the bit torrents now

A small number of uploaders make high-quality digital "copies" available to an unlimited number of downloaders.

There are movies, television shows, music videos, digital books (epubs) and audiobooks, as well as the ever-present porn. Music pirating is only a small concern any more, there's so much more available on the bit torrents. Almost everything is in English, but other languages are available too.

[onenote]

12. At its core this case is an indirect attack on the Sony decision

The heart of the copyright owner’s argument is that an entity that provides a product or service with knowledge that it can and will be used by some purchasers to engage in infringement, even where the product or service has substantial non-infringing uses, should be subject that entity to massive financial liability as a “contributory” infringer.