The AI Journal: The Supreme Court just saved AI — without even mentioning it
Last month, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that had nothing — and everything — to do with AI: the Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment decision. By siding with an internet provider in a billion-dollar music piracy case, the Court quietly built a fortress around the future of AI innovation.
The Court’s decision reduces copyright liability exposure for AI companies based on infringement by their users. That outcome has enraged entities that create copyrighted material, such as movie studios and record labels, but it keeps in place fair use protections for dual-use technologies traditionally recognized by copyright law. Thus, the Supreme Court has extended a significant zone of protection around AI innovation.
Cox is a broadband internet service provider, and like all ISPs, some of its customers violate copyright law by sharing sound recordings. Sony sued Cox, rather than its customers, on the theory that Cox was indirectly responsible for the infringing activities of its users — a doctrine known as contributory infringement in copyright law. Sony Music won at trial and was awarded more than $1 billion in damages.
The Supreme Court reversed the verdict in Sony’s favor, clarifying that service providers such as Cox are contributorily liable for their users’ infringement only if the provider intends that its service be used for infringement.
Intent, the Court held, can be shown in two ways: either that the provider’s service is tailored to infringement — it has no commercially significant or substantial non-infringing uses — or that the provider actively induces its customers to infringe, such as by advertising infringing uses or building a business model dependent upon unauthorized file sharing.