The ripples out from the recent US Supreme Court ruling in favour of ISP Cox Communications – and against the labels who had sued it – are beginning.
The court ruled that Cox was “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”.
Now X (formerly Twitter) is hoping that the ruling will put paid to its own legal battle against music publishers, who have been suing it for copyright infringement since 2023.
X says that the legal battle, which saw it countersue the publishers this January accusing them of collusion, rests on the same issues of ‘contributory liability’ as the Cox ruling.
“If the Supreme Court had issued this opinion three years ago, X believes this court would have dismissed plaintiffs’ contributory-infringement claim in its entirety,” claimed X’s latest filing, according to Billboard.
“Indeed, virtually every contributory-infringement case plaintiffs cited in opposing X’s motion to dismiss — including the Fourth Circuit case on which this court relied — is no longer good law.”
The publishers disagree with X’s demand for the case to be dismissed, but are now exploring what the implications of the Supreme Court ruling are for their case.
