$1 billion Supreme Court music piracy case could affect internet users
Source: USA Today
Nov. 30, 2025, 3:00 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON − The entertainment industrys 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
(3,169 posts)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
(59,194 posts)Mawspam2
(1,068 posts)I moved on to Spotify years ago.
ToxMarz
(2,651 posts)The name and trademarks were purchased and it is was relaunched as a legitimate streaming service. Stick with Spotify if you like it.
LudwigPastorius
(13,902 posts)ToxMarz
(2,651 posts)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
(12,111 posts)Nobody's intellectual properties were respected.
JohnnyRingo
(20,331 posts)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..
Polybius
(21,253 posts)As a big Napster fan back in the day, what was done to it in court disgusted me.
moniss
(8,501 posts)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."