Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment · ¶63
The majority's limiting of secondary liability here dismantles the statutory incentive structure that Congress created. Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998, 14 years after this Court held in Sony that the Copyright Act impliedly provided for secondary liability. At the time, the internet was exploding in popularity. Without knowing more about the outer bounds of secondary liability for copyright infringement, and faced with a rapidly changing technological landscape, Congress included in the DMCA a safe harbor that shields internet service providers (ISPs) like Cox from secondary liability for copyright infringement. To gain that protection, they must “adop[t] and reasonably implemen[t] . . . a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances” of subscribers who repeatedly infringe copyrights using the ISP's network. 17 U. S. C. §§…Read in context ›
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