Supreme Court ruling on music piracy | Matt Connarton Unleashed

Got a little bit of music news, and I will be very curious to see how people react to this on social media or if you are listening live. Of course, you can always chime in in the chat room as well. Because I say that because I have what maybe among people who are active in the music industry as I am and a lot of our audiences people in the music industry, I have what may be an unpopular opinion about this. I'm not sure though. So this is something that the Supreme Court has ruled on regarding piracy and copyright and record labels and all of it.

And this isn't important. This could be you know, we use the term landmark ruling, so this is important and it does involve the Supreme Court. You know, we don't do politics on this iteration of the show, but this isn't political. This is but it does. It is something that affects the music industry, and I have my opinion about this might be a little bit unpopular. We'll see, we'll get into it. But I actually agree with the Supreme Court's ruling on this in a time where you know, I may not agree with a lot of Supreme Court rulings, but I do agree on this, but I'll be very curious to get audience feedback, either live and or afterward on social media.

But this is from one of my favorite websites for music industry news, music businessworldwide dot com. US Supreme Court. This has happened this week. US Supreme Court sides with Coxcommunications in landmark music piracy case brought by record labels. Okay, so here's the article. This we'll explain. The US Supreme Court has ruled that internet service provider Coxcommunications cannot be held responsible for music piracy committed by its subscribers, ending a landmark copyright case in which the major record companies had won a one billion dollar jury verdict.

This was This was unanimous, by the way, The unanimous decision by the Supreme Court was handed down on March twenty five, so this was just a few days ago. Justice Clarence Thomas writing for the court. Again, if you know me, we don't get into politics on this iteration of the show, but not anymore. We used to a long time ago. But if you know me, you know again, Justice Thomas not someone I would necessarily agree with much, if ever, but he's got it right here. In my opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, said that Cox quote neither induced its users infringement nor provided a service tailored to infringement.

So, in other words, saying that an Internet service provider, just because they are providing you internet service does not mean that that somehow is inducing you to do something illegal like piracy, like infringing on somebody's copyright. They're just providing you the service, you know. He's right, uh, He also said. He also wrote in his opinion, quote Cox provided internet service to its subscribers, but it did not intend for that service to be used to commit copyright infringement. Holding Cox liable merely for failing to terminate Internet service to infringing accounts would expand secondary copyright liability beyond our precedence.

Unquote. Again, if you know me, you won't hear me say this often, if ever. But in this case, Justice Clarence Thomas got this right. He's right. I agree absolutely. Now. The reason I say this may be an unpopular opinion within some of with some of our audience and people in the music industry who listen to the show is there are some in the music industry who are who are upset about this, who say no, uh, piracy is uh has always been a problem, and we need to do whatever we can to tamp down piracy and copyright infringement.

And look, I am someone who again, if you know me, if you know my background, if you're a regular listener to the show, you know that ultimately I will always advocate on behalf of artists and the music industry, you know, the people, not necessarily the major labels who But we won't get into that, and certainly not I won't advocate on behalf of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, but we won't get into all of that. But I'm saying artists making money, making a living, which is much harder than people might realize, Artists making a living within the music industry and being paid for their work.

I will always advocate on behalf of that, always, always, always, That's what I care about most is artists get getting paid, being compensated for their work, and being able to make a living. It's it's crucial, it's critical, and we talk about that a lot on the show, especially with AI and the advent of all this AI generated music and the threats that that that that holds, And you know, we talk about this stuff all the time on the program. But I do think it's a little bit absurd this idea that you're going to hold internet service providers responsible and make them have to pay for what individual users are doing.

That would be like, you know, penalizing auto manufacturers every time someone gets into a car accident where somebody ends up dead. You know, is the is it the fault of the auto manufacturers for producing a product that someone uses to accidentally kill someone on the highway. You know, let's see some common sense. Let's be reasonable and rational about this. And again some people will say, Matt, we have to do whatever we can, literally whatever we can to stop piracy, to stop people from having their copyrights infringed upon.

I understand that, but but we also, again we have to be reasonable and use common sense, and so to hold Internet service providers responsible for what individual users are doing, whether it's piracy, whether it's using the dark Web to do other things that are illegal, accessing the dark web, whatever it is, right, you know, unless the Internet service provider is somehow And again, as just as Thomas said, there's no inducing of individual users to commit fraud or to do any kind of illegal activity, you know, unless you have an Internet service provider who is marketing their service in a way that they're actually saying somewhere in their marketing.

By the way, you know, you can do whatever you want. You can do illegal things if you use our internet service, and we won't even nobody will even get mad at you about it, you know. But obviously that's not happening. Okay, So more to this article. Again, this is from Music Business Worldwide dot com. Commenting on the decision, Mitch our i AA chairman and CEO CEO said, and okay, so here's the dissenting opinion, dissenting against me. I feel like I'm the dissenting opinion because again I feel like I have an unpopular opinion about this within the music industry.

Here's what Here's what Mitch Glazier said. Again, he's the RIAA chairman and CEO. He said, quote, we are disappointed in the court's decision vacating a jury's determination that Cox Communications contributed to mass scale copyright infringement based on overwhelming evidence that the company knowingly facilitated theft, knowingly facilitated theft. Come on, so by that logic, you know, take the music industry, take the piracy part out of it. Let's just you know, back up and take a broader view of this what and what he's saying By that logic, anything that anyone ever does that might be illegal, It might be fraudulent, that might be deceptive.

On the Internet, if they're using Coxcommunications for their Internet service, anything anybody ever does online while using that service, well it's it was facilitated by by the Internet service provider. I mean, that's absurd, that's crazy. That's that's that's truly, that's that's an insane standard. How could any business live up to that and and and be held responsible for that. That's nuts to me, um, he said more mits. Glazier said more quote. To be effective, copyright law must protect creators and markets from harmful infringement, and policymakers should look closely at the impact of this ruling.

The Court's decision is narrow, applying only to contributory infringement cases involving defendants like cos that they do not themselves, copy, hosts, distributor publish infringing material, or control or induce such activity unquote.

The ruling means that simply knowing some subscribers are pirating music and continuing to provide them with Internet access is not enough to make an ISP liable for copyright infringement, right because again the ISP, Yeah, they know that some people are pirating music. Of course they do, because we all know that. But is there I guess maybe there's an implicit expectation that the ISP is supposed to detect who is pirrating music and then turn off their service. Is that? Is that what we're expecting?

Oh? What could possibly go wrong there? I mean, come on, this is this is crazy. So again I agree with the court's decision. There's more to this. Under the standard set of today is set by today's decision, rights holders must provide either must prove either that a provider actively encouraged infringement or that its service was designed for piracy with no real lawful use. Internet access, the court said, clearly has many lawful purposes. The case dates back to twenty eighteen, when Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and dozens of other rights holders sued Cox, arguing the company ignored over one hundred and sixty three thousand infringement notices about subscribers illegally downloading more than ten thousand copyrighted songs.

The labels pointed to evidence that a Cox manager overseeing piracy compliance told his team to quote f the DMCA unquote and the DMCA is a law that is designed to I wish I could remember exactly what it stands for digital media copyr Is that the Digital Media Copyright Act. Again, it's an antipiracy law. A jury sided with the labels in twenty nineteen, awarding one billion dollars. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals partially overturned the verdict in twenty twenty four, throwing out the vicarious liability finding but keeping the contributory infringement ruling and ordering a retrial on damages that could have reached one point five billion.

The Supreme Court took up the case last June, heard oral arguments in December, and has now reversed the remaining contributory liability, including finding entirely The Thomas opinion laid out two and only two paths to contributory copyright liability. The first is inducement, where a provider actively promotes its service as a tool for piracy, as in a landmark two thousand and five MGM versus Groster ruling involving file sharing software. By the way, remember if you're old enough to remember two thousand and five, early to mid two thousands.

That's the era of napster. That's the era of mass panic and I do mean panic within the music industry about file sharing. That was when in two thousand and five, I was still working for trans World Entertainment, which owned Strawberries and Fye and all of that at the time, and there was panic because it was I remember having conversations with people where I just, you know, kind of shrugging and said, well, music is free. Now, that's it. You can't stop it, you can't help it. Music is now free. What are you gonna do?

But anyway, so that's why I say, you know, two thousand and five, remember what was happening and too again, if you're old enough, remember what was happening in two thousand and five within the music industry at that time. Okay, So the second path is where a service is specifically tailored to infringement and has no real commercial use beyond fire. So now so when you're talking about that, I mean, I don't know of an Internet service provider anywhere that actively promotes itself as a service designed specifically for piracy.

Now, there's lots and lots of websites. I won't get into how I know that that you can do that. You can you can download things that you otherwise might be required to pay for. Uh. But but I don't know of an internet service provider that actively markets themselves as Hey, if you need to pirate something, where where? Where the place to go for it? I don't I don't know that. Okay, So Cox, the court found met neither test. The company had contractually prohibited subscribers from using its service to infringe copyrights, sent warnings, suspended services, and terminated accounts.

The opinion stated, quote, this court has repeatedly made clear that mere knowledge that a service will be used to infringe is in se efficient to establish the required intent to infringe. Elsewhere in the opinion, Thomas wrote, quote based on this theory of infringement respondence, Sony Music, Entertainment and other major copyright owners secured a billion dollar verdict against Cox. The United States Court of Appeals of the Fourth Circuit agreed that because Cox provided Internet service to known infringers, it was a willful infringer itself.

Under our precedence, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights. Accordingly, we reverse unquote yeah, because even if you know and look, even if you know that there are specific people, maybe customers you've had in the past who have bought your internet service, you know that these people have been flagged previously for copyright infringement, for piracy somehow they've been flagged.

What are you gonna do, so you're never going to give them service again? Do they just depending on where they live? I mean, look, depending on where you are geographically, you might have very limited options for home internet service. So does someone who may have got caught or have been at least noticed by an internet service provider at some point in the past, you know, downloaded something that maybe they didn't pay for, maybe they pirated something. So now they just don't get to have internet ever again.

I mean, what are you supposed to do again? From just let's be practical about it, think about it practically, what do you want these internet service providers to do? There's no practical way for them to do what you want them to do. If what you want them to do is make sure that nobody ever pirates anything. It's it's an unfair, untenable burden to be placing on these Internet service providers. So the ruling also found that the Fourth Circuit had gone wrong by creating a broader form of liability, holding that quote supplying to product with knowledge that the recipient will use it to infringe copyrights was enough.

The Supreme Court said this conflicted with decades of its own case law. Justice Sonia Soda Mayor, joined by Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, agreed Cox should not be liable in this case, but warned that the majority's ruling goes too far. Soda Mayor argued that it strips ISPs of any real reason to deal with piracy on their networks, making the DMCA's Safe Harbor rules pointless. Those rules require ISPs to cut off repeat infringers in exchange for legal protection. She wrote that the majority's decision completely upends the balance Congress created end quote, consigns the Safe Harbor provision to obsolescence, adding that 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.

Unquote again, I agree with the Supreme Court's decision on this, but I'll be very curious. Like I said, I will be very curious to see on social media how you all feel about it, or you know, on YouTube, you can you know, we stream the show on YouTube, you can leave comments and so forth. But I really do want to get feedback on this because, like I said, I know that my opinion may be unpopular in some circles, and but I'm happy to I'm happy to fight it out with anyone who wants to, all right,

Supreme Court ruling on music piracy | Matt Connarton Unleashed

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