Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment · ¶64
The majority's new rule completely upends that balance and consigns the safe harbor provision to obsolescence. Typically, this Court tries “ ` “to give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a statute.” ' ” TRW Inc. v. An drews, 534 U. S. 19, 31 (2001). After today, however, ISPs no longer face any realistic probability of secondary liability for copyright infringement, regardless of whether they take steps to address infringement on their networks and regardless of what they know about their users' activity. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 14 (counsel for Cox agreeing that it “would have no liability risk” based on knowledge alone). For example, under the majority's rule, an ISP faces no liability if it sells an internet connection to a company that the ISP knows runs a website that exclusively hosts illegally obtained copyrighted material. That ISP also faces no liability even if it…Read in context ›
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