Supreme Court rules: Providers are not responsible for file sharing
The highest US court exonerates internet providers: Without active promotion, they are not liable for copyright infringements by their users.
The Supreme Court of the USA has made a far-reaching decision on copyright on the internet. According to the ruling, internet service providers are generally not liable for copyright infringements committed by their users. The court thus clarifies that access to the network alone is not sufficient to hold suppliers liable.
The specific case involved the supplier Cox Communications and a lawsuit brought by major music labels, including Sony Music. The latter had accused the company of failing to adequately prevent mass copyright infringements through file sharing. The decision overturns an earlier judgement. In 2019, a jury had ordered Cox to pay around one billion dollars because users had illegally distributed more than 10,000 protected musical works via the company's connection. The judges unanimously concluded that the previous standards for so-called contributory liability («contributory liability») were too broad.
What does the court see differently from its predecessor?
In its reasoning, the court draws a clear line: a supplier is only liable if it deliberately promotes copyright infringements or expressly designs its services to do so. The mere knowledge that users are also distributing illegal content via their own service is not sufficient. According to the court, the accusation that a supplier has not acted consistently enough against repeat offenders is also not sufficient to justify liability.
The legal dispute goes back several years. The music companies had argued that Cox had ignored thousands of notices of copyright infringements and refrained from blocking affected users. The supplier countered that it only provided internet access and could not act as a supervisory authority for the behaviour of its customers.
And Switzerland?
With this judgement, the court has set an important precedent for dealing with copyright infringements in the digital space. The decision affects not only traditional internet providers, but also other services that transmit or store content - such as file hosters.
The judgement also provides food for thought in Europe. European courts and legislators are repeatedly guided by cases from the USA when it comes to platform and provider liability. The EU has its own liability rules, for example for hosting and access services. In Switzerland, the Federal Supreme Court ruled that a provider is liable for a customer'scan only be held liable for a customer's copyright infringement if the provider «facilitated the offence through its conduct» and «there is an adequate causal link between the principal offence and the subscriber's conduct».
The discussion about how far suppliers' responsibility extends is likely to be reignited by the latest decision, however - especially with regard to the question of whether or not they must actively take action against users.
I've been tinkering with digital networks ever since I found out how to activate both telephone channels on the ISDN card for greater bandwidth. As for the analogue variety, I've been doing that since I learned to talk. Though Winterthur is my adoptive home city, my heart still bleeds red and blue.
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