Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment

P R E L I M I N A R Y P R I N T
Volume 607 U. S. Part 2
Pages 583–608
OFFICIAL REPORTS
OF
T H E S U P R E M E C O U R T
March 25, 2026
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF
reporter of decisions
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583
Syllabus
COX COMMUNICATIONS, INC., et al. v. SONY MUSIC
ENTERT
AINMENT et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the fourth circuit
No. 24–171. Argued December 1, 2025—Decided March 25, 2026
Under the Copyright Act, “[a]nyone who violates any of the exclusive
rights of the copyright owner . . . is an infringer of the copyright.”
17 U. S. C. § 501(a). This Court has also recognized two categories of
secondary liability, which means liability for the copyright infringement
of another. Those two categories are “contributory” liability and “vi-
carious” liability. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.,
545 U. S. 913, 930.
This case concerns contributory liability, which requires that a pro-
vider intended its service to be used for infringement. A copyright
owner can show the requisite intent in two ways. First, it can show
that a party affrmatively induced the infringement. Ibid. Second, it
can show that the party sold a service tailored to infringement. Id., at
942 (Ginsburg, J., concurring). These two bases for contributory liabil-
ity track patent law. See 35 U. S. C. §§ 271(b), (c).
Cox Communications, Inc., is an Internet service provider serving
approximately 6 million subscribers, each associated with a unique In-
ternet Protocol (IP) address. Internet service providers like Cox have
limited knowledge about how their services are used; they know which
IP address corresponds to which subscriber account but cannot distin-
guish individual users or directly control how services are used. Cox
contractually prohibits subscribers from using their connection to post,
copy, transmit, or disseminate content that infringes copyrights.
Sony Music Entertainment and other major music copyright owners
enlisted MarkMonitor to track copyright infringement across the In-
ternet. MarkMonitor's software detects when copyrighted works are
illegally uploaded or downloaded and traces the activity to particular IP
addresses. During the roughly 2-year period at issue, MarkMonitor
sent Cox 163,148 notices identifying IP addresses of Cox subscribers
associated with infringement.
Sony sued Cox in Federal District Court, advancing two theories of
secondary copyright liability. First, Sony alleged that Cox contributed
to its users' infringement by continuing to provide Internet service to
subscribers whose IP addresses Cox knew were associated with in-
fringement. Second, Sony alleged that Cox was vicariously liable for

584 COX
COMMUNICATIONS, INC. v. SONY MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT
Syllabus
its users' infringement. The jury found in favor of Sony on both theo-
r
ies, found Cox's infringement willful, and awarded $1 billion in statu-
tory damages. The District Court denied Cox's post-trial motion for
judgment as a matter of law in relevant part. The Fourth Circuit af-
frmed as to contributory liability, reasoning that supplying a product
with knowledge that the recipient will use it to infringe copyrights is
exactly the sort of culpable conduct suffcient for contributory infringe-
ment. The Fourth Circuit reversed as to vicarious liability. This
Court granted Cox's petition for certiorari as to contributory liability.
Held: The provider of a service is contributorily liable for a user's infringe-
ment only if it intended that the provided service be used for infringe-
ment, which can be shown only if the party induced the infringement or
the provided service is tailored to that infringement; Cox neither in-
duced its users' infringement nor provided a service tailored to infringe-
ment; accordingly, Cox is not contributorily liable for the infringement
of Sony's copyrights. Pp. 592–596.
(a) “The Copyright Act does not expressly render anyone liable for
infringement committed by another.” Sony Corp. of America v. Uni-
versal City Studios, Inc., 464 U. S. 417, 434. Ordinarily, when Congress
intends to impose secondary liability, it does so expressly. Central
Bank of Denver, N. A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. A., 511
U. S. 164, 176–177. The Court's precedents have recognized specifc
forms of secondary copyright liability that predated the Copyright Act,
but the Court is loath to expand such liability beyond those precedents.
Under this Court's precedents, the intent required for contributory
liability can be shown only if the party induced the infringement or the
provided service is tailored to that infringement. See Grokster, 545
U. S., at 930; Sony, 464 U. S., at 440–441.
A provider induces infringement if it actively encourages infringe-
ment through specifc acts, as in Grokster, where fle-sharing software
companies promoted and marketed their software as a tool to infringe
copyrights. See 545 U. S., at 926. A service is tailored to infringement
if it is “not capable of `substantial' or `commercially signifcant' nonin-
fringing uses.” Id., at 942 (Ginsburg, J., concurring). For example, in
Sony, the Court held that sale of the Betamax video tape recorder to
the general public did not constitute contributory infringement. It rea-
soned that the tape recorder was “capable of substantial noninfringing
uses” because it could be used to record copyrighted television programs
for later personal viewing, which would not constitute infringement—
even though it could also be used to reproduce and sell copyrighted
programming, which would constitute infringement. 464 U. S., at 449,
456. The Court has repeatedly made clear—see Kalem Co. v. Harper
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585
Syllabus
Brothers, 222 U. S. 55, Sony, and Grokster—that mere knowledge that
a
service will be used to infringe is insuffcient to establish the required
intent to infringe. Pp. 592–594.
(b) Cox neither induced its users' infringement nor provided a service
tailored to infringement. As for inducement, Cox did not “induce” or
“encourage” its subscribers to infringe in any manner, Grokster, 545
U. S., at 930; Sony provided no “evidence of express promotion, market-
ing, and intent to promote” infringement, id., at 926; and Cox repeatedly
discouraged copyright infringement by sending warnings, suspending
services, and terminating accounts. As for providing a service tailored
to infringement, Cox's Internet service was clearly “capable of `substan-
tial' or `commercially signifcant' noninfringing uses,” id., at 942; Cox
simply provided Internet access, which is used for many purposes other
than copyright infringement.
The Fourth Circuit's holding went beyond the two forms of liability
recognized in Grokster and Sony by holding that “supplying a product
with knowledge that the recipient will use it to infringe copyrights
is . . . suffcient for contributory infringement.” 93 F. 4th 222, 236.
This holding went beyond the two bases for contributory liability recog-
nized in the Court's precedent and conficted with the Court's repeated
admonition that contributory liability cannot rest only on a provider's
knowledge of i nfr i ngement and i nsufficient ac ti on to prevent it.
Pp. 595–596.
(c) Sony argues that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe har-
bor—under which Internet service providers cannot be secondarily lia-
ble for certain forms of copyright infringement if they have imple-
mented “a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate
circumstances of subscribers and account holders” who “are repeat in-
fringers,” 17 U. S. C. § 512(i)(1)(A)—would have no effect if Internet
service providers are not liable for providing Internet service to known
infringers. The DMCA does not expressly impose liability for Internet
service providers who serve known infringers; it merely creates new
defenses from liability for such providers. The DMCA itself made clear
that failure to comply with the safe-harbor rules “shall not bear ad-
versely upon . . . a defense by the service provider,” as here, “that the
service provider's conduct is not infringing.” § 512(l). P. 596.
93 F. 4th 222, reversed and remanded.
Thomas, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J.,
and Alito, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ., joined.
Sotomayor, J., fled an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Jack-
son, J., joined, post, p. 596.
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586 COX
COMMUNICATIONS, INC. v. SONY MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT
Syllabus
E. Joshua Rosenkranz argued the cause for petitioners.
W
ith him on the briefs were Christopher J. Cariello, Alexan-
dra Bursak, Edward Williams, Abigail Colella, Kamilyn Y.
Choi, Roman Martinez, Sarang V. Damle, and Brent T. F.
Murphy.
Deputy Solicitor General Stewart argued the cause for the
United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him
on the brief were Solicitor General Sauer, Principal Deputy
Assistant Attorney General Roth, Aaron Z. Roper, and Dan-
iel Tenny.
Paul D. Clement argued the cause for respondents. With
him on the brief were Erin E. Murphy, Kevin Wynosky,
Matthew J. Oppenheim, Scott A. Zebrak, and Jeffrey M.
Gould.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for Altice USA, Inc.,
et al. by Joshua D. Branson, Scott H. Angstreich, Derek C. Reinbold,
Elana R. Beale, and William M. Herberer; for the American Civil Liber-
ties Union et al. by Rebecca Tushnet, Mark Lemley, Jennifer Granick,
Evelyn Dan forth-Scott, Cecillia D. Wang, and Eden B. Heilman; for the
Common Sense Copyright Coalition et al. by Thomas M. Johnson, Jr.;
for the Computer & Communications Industry Association by Jonathan
Band, Matt Schruers, and Ali Sternburg; for the Electronic Frontier
Foundation et al. by Michael Barclay and Mitchell L. Stoltz; for Engine
Advocacy et al. by Benjamin W. Berkowitz; for Google LLC et al. by
Andrew J. Pincus, Archis A. Parasharami, and A. John P. Mancini; for
Grande Communications Networks, LLC, by Daniel L. Geyser and Rich-
ard L. Brophy; for Intellectual Property Law Scholars by Al fred C. Yen,
pro se; for the Internet Society by Raechel Keay Anglin; for Public Knowl-
edge by John Bergmayer and Meredith Rose; and for X Corp. by Andrew
H. Schapiro, William F. Patry, and Jessica A. Rose.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance were fled for the Association
of Amicus Counsel by Robert J. Rando and Charles E. Miller; for the
Authors Guild, Inc., et al. by Kevin Amer; for the Copyright Alliance by
Robert H. Rotstein, Eleanor M. Lackman, and Eric J. Schwartz; for For-
mer Members of Congress et al. by Jacqueline C. Charlesworth; for Intel-
lectual Property Law Scholars by Nancy E. Wol ff; for the National Center
on Sexual Exploitation by Hyland Hunt and Dana Kaersvang; for the
National Music Publishers' Association et al. by Shannen W. Coffn and

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587
Opinion of the Court
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.
Countless
people use the Internet for legal activities, but
some use it to illegally share copyrighted works, such as
songs and movies. The Copyright Act authorizes copyright
owners to sue these copyr ight i nfr i ngers. 17 U. S. C.
§§ 501(a), 504(a). In this case, however, instead of suing
those infringers, the copyright owners sued petitioners, Cox
Communications, Inc., and its subsidiary, who provided the
Internet connections that the infringers used. They con-
tended that Cox was itself liable for copyright infringement
because it continued to provide known infringers with In-
ternet access.
Based on this theory of infringement, respondents, Sony
Music Entertainment and other major copyright owners, se-
cured a billion-dollar verdict against Cox. The United
States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed that
because Cox provided Internet service to known infringers,
it was a willful infringer itself.
Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copy-
right infringer for merely providing a service to the general
public with knowledge that it will be used by some to in-
fringe copyrights. Accordingly, we reverse.
I
A
Under the Copyright Act, copyright owners have the ex-
clusive rights to copy, distribute, and digitally transmit their
Michael J. Allan; for SoundExchange, Inc., et al. by Jonathan Z. King;
and for Bruce E. Boyden, pro se.
Briefs of amici curiae were fled for the American Intellectual Property
Law Association by Nancy J. Mertzel and Salvatore Anastasi; for the Asso-
ciation of American Publishers, Inc., et al. by Cynthia S. Arato; for Floor64,
Inc., by Catherine R. Gellis; for the Motion Picture Association, Inc., by
Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., Elaine J. Goldenberg, Daniel J. Kane, and Kelly M.
Klaus; for Professor of Patent Law by Charles Duan, pro se; for Christo-
pher Cotropia et al. by Andrew Dhuey, and Christopher Cotropia and James
Gibson, both pro se; and for Joshua Moon et al. by Matthew D. Hardin.
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588 COX
COMMUNICATIONS, INC. v. SONY MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT
Opinion of the Court
copyrighted works. § 106. So, for example, if a musician
has
a copyright for a song recording, others generally cannot
copy and share that recording without the musician's permis-
sion. The Copyright Act provides that “[a]nyone who vio-
lates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner . . . is
an infringer of the copyright.” § 501(a). A willful infringer
faces st atutory damages of up to $150,000 per work.
§ 504(c)(2).
This Court has also recognized two categories of second-
ary copyright liability, which means liability for the copy-
right infringement of another. Those two categories are
“contributory” liability and “vicarious” liability. Metro-
Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 545 U. S. 913,
930 (2005). This case concerns contributory liability.
The provider of a service is contributorily liable for a
user's infringement if it intended its service to be used for
infringement. To establish that a provider intended its
service to be used for infringement, a copyright owner must
show one of two things. First, it can show that a party af-
frmatively “induc[ed]” the infringement. Ibid. Or, sec-
ond, it can show that the party sold a service tailored to
infringement. Id., at 942 (Ginsburg, J., concurring). Patent
law, with which copyright law has a “historic kinship,” Sony
Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U. S.
417, 439 (1984), tracks these two requirements. See 35
U. S. C. §§ 271(b), (c).
In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copy-
right Act, 17 U. S. C. § 1201 et seq., which gave service pro-
viders a safe-harbor defense to secondary copyright liability.
Under the DMCA safe-harbor defense, service providers
cannot be secondarily liable for certain forms of copyright
infringement if they have implemented “a policy that pro-
vides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of
subscribers and account holders” who “are repeat in-
fringers.” § 512(i)(1)(A). At the same time, the DMCA

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589
Opinion of the Court
specifes that failure to qualify for the safe-harbor defense
“sha
ll not bear adversely upon the consideration of a defense
by the service provider that the service provider's conduct
is not infringing.” § 512(l).
B
Cox Communications, Inc., is an Internet service provider
that serves about 6 million subscribers. Each subscriber's
account is associated with a unique Internet Protocol, or
“IP,” address. Many users can share a particular IP ad-
dress. For example, a household, coffee shop, or college dor-
mitory ordinarily has one IP address, but has multiple indi-
vidual users.
Internet service providers, such as Cox, have limited
knowledge about how their Internet services are used and
who uses them. They do know which IP address corres-
ponds to which subscriber's account, but they cannot distin-
guish one individual user from another. For instance, if an
Internet service provider learns that someone illegally down-
loaded music from a coffee shop's IP address, the Internet
service provider cannot determine which individual at the
coffee shop infringed the copyright. And, more generally,
Internet service providers also cannot directly control how
their Internet services are used.
Sony Music Entertainment and the other plaintiffs in this
case are major music copyright owners. They have strug-
gled to protect their copyrights in the age of online music
sharing. Today, anyone with an Internet connection and
easily obtained software can upload digital copies of copy-
righted music and make them available for others to dow-
nload. This practice often infringes the owners' exclusive
rights to copy and distribute their works. §§ 106(1), (3).
Copyright owners can, and do, sue the individuals who in-
fringe their copyrights in this manner. See, e. g., Sony BMG
Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, 660 F. 3d 487, 490 (CA1
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590 COX
COMMUNICATIONS, INC. v. SONY MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT
Opinion of the Court
2011). However, because online infringement is so wide-
spread,
pursuing each individual infringer does little to stem
the tide.
Given the diffculty of pursuing individual infringers, Sony
attempted to enlist Internet service providers such as Cox
to help it enforce its copyrights. It enlisted the services of
an entity called MarkMonitor to track infringement of its
copyrights across the Internet. MarkMonitor's software
can detect when copyrighted works are illegally uploaded or
downloaded and trace the infringing activity to a particular
IP address. It can also identify the Internet service pro-
vider for the infringing IP address. When MarkMonitor de-
tects apparently infringing activity, it sends notices to the
Internet service provider, identifying the IP address at
which the infringement occurred. In the roughly 2-year pe-
riod at issue here, MarkMonitor sent Cox 163,148 such
notices.
Cox states that it took steps to limit copyright infringe-
ment by those using its Internet services. According to
Cox, it created a system of responding to the notices that it
received from MarkMonitor. After the second MarkMonitor
notice for a subscriber's account, Cox sent a warning to that
subscriber. After additional notices, Cox terminated In-
ternet access to that subscriber's IP address until the sub-
scriber responded to the warning. If it continued to receive
notices for that IP address, Cox suspended service until the
subscriber called and received a warning over the phone.
After 13 notices, the subscriber was subject to termination
of all Internet service. Cox also contractually prohibits its
subscribers from using their connection “to post, copy, trans-
mit, or disseminate any content that infringes the patents,
copyrights . . . or proprietary rights of any party.” 2 App. 405.
The parties disagree about how to characterize Cox's ef-
forts to protect Sony's copyrights. Sony points out that Cox
terminated only 32 subscribers for infringement during the
claim period, even as it terminated hundreds of thousands of
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591
Opinion of the Court
subscribers for nonpayment during the same period. Brief
for
Respondents 18. Sony also points to statements from
Cox employees expressing frustration with the notices and
an unwillingness to act on them in favor of protecting reve-
nue from subscriber payments. Id., at 22. Cox resists this
characterization by pointing out that its warning and suspen-
sion system ended 98% of identifed infringement. Brief for
Petitioners 10–11.
C
Sony sued Cox in the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Virginia. It advanced two theories of
secondary copyright liability.
First, Sony alleged that Cox was contributorily liable for
its users' infringement. Sony argued that Cox contributed
to its users' infringement by continuing to provide Internet
service to subscribers whose IP addresses it knew were as-
sociated with infringement. Second, Sony alleged that Cox
was vicariously liable for its users' infringement. On Sony's
telling, Cox “proft[ed] directly from the infringement and
ha[d] a right and ability to supervise the direct infringer[s],”
Grokster, 545 U. S., at 930, n. 9, because it provided paying
subscribers with Internet service that was then used to in-
fringe. According to Sony's allegations, Cox was liable for
willfully infringing 10,017 copyrighted works, subjecting it
to up to $1.5 billion in statutory damages.
In the District Court, Sony prevailed as to both contribu-
tory and vicarious liability. The jury found in favor of Sony
on both theories. 464 F. Supp. 3d 795, 807–808 (ED Va.
2020). It also found that Cox's infringement was willful,
awarding $1 billion in statutory damages. Ibid. The Dis-
trict Court denied Cox's post-trial motion for judgment as a
matter of law in relevant part. Id., at 847.*
*Cox could not invoke the DMCA safe-harbor defense based on its ef-
forts to reduce infringement because an earlier decision had foreclosed
that defense for the relevant period. 93 F. 4th 222, 228 (CA4 2024) (citing
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592 COX
COMMUNICATIONS, INC. v. SONY MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT
Opinion of the Court
The Fourth Circuit affrmed in part and reversed in part.
It
affrmed as to contributory liability because Cox continued
to provide Internet service to known infringers. Applying
Circuit precedent, it reasoned that “supplying a product with
knowledge that the recipient will use it to infringe copy-
rights is exactly the sort of culpable conduct suffcient for
contributory infringement.” 93 F. 4th 222, 236 (2024) (citing
BMG Rights Mgmt. (US) LLC v. Cox Communications, Inc.,
881 F. 3d 293, 308 (2018)). The Fourth Circuit reversed as
to vicarious liability because it concluded that Cox did not
“receiv[e] a direct fnancial beneft from its subscribers' in-
fringement.” 93 F. 4th, at 233. The court then vacated the
damages award and remanded for the jury to reassess dam-
ages based on contributory liability alone.
We granted Cox's petition for a writ of certiorari as to
contributory liability. 606 U. S. 930 (2025). We denied
Sony's petition for a writ of certiorari regarding vicarious
liability. 606 U. S. 931 (2025).
II
A
“The Copyright Act does not expressly render anyone lia-
ble for infringement committed by another.” Sony, 464
U. S., at 434. Ordinarily, when Congress intends to impose
secondary liability, it does so expressly. See Central Bank
of Denver, N. A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. A.,
511 U. S. 164, 176–177 (1994). Although our precedents
have recognized specifc forms of secondary copyright liabil-
ity that predated the Copyright Act, we are loath to expand
such liability beyond those precedents.
B
The provider of a service is contributorily liable for the
user's infringement only if it intended that the provided
BMG Rights Mgmt. (US) LLC v. Cox Communications, Inc., 881 F. 3d
293, 301–305 (CA4 2018)).
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593
Opinion of the Court
service be used for infringement. The intent required for
contr
ibutory liability can be shown only if the party induced
the infringement or the provided service is tailored to that
infringement. Grokster, 545 U. S., at 930; Sony, 464 U. S.,
at 440–441.
A provider induces infringement if it actively encourages
infringement through specifc acts. Grokster, 545 U. S., at
942 (Ginsburg, J., concurring). For example, in Grokster, we
held that a jury could fnd two fle-sharing software compa-
nies liable for inducement. Id., at 941 (majority opinion).
The companies promoted and marketed their software as a
tool to infringe copyrights. Id., at 926. The “principal ob-
ject” of their business models “was use of their software to
download copyrighted works.” Ibid. Other decisions have
held providers liable for similar conduct. See Kalem Co. v.
Harper Brothers, 222 U. S. 55, 62–63 (1911) (fnding liability
where “[t]he defendant not only expected but invoked by ad-
vertisement the use of its flms” for infringement of an au-
thor's copyright); Henry v. A. B. Dick Co., 224 U. S. 1, 49
(1912) (fnding liability because the sale was made “with the
purpose and intent” that the object be used for patent in-
fringement), overruled on other grounds, Motion Picture
Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co., 243 U. S. 502, 518
(1917).
A service is tailored to infringement if it is “not capable
of `substantial' or `commercially signifcant' noninfringing
uses.” Grokster, 545 U. S., at 942 (Ginsburg, J., concurring)
(quoting Sony, 464 U. S., at 442). In Sony, copyright owners
sued the maker and the retailers of the Betamax video tape
recorder. Id., at 422. The tape recorder could be used to
record copyrighted television programs for later personal
viewing, which would not constitute infringement. Id., at
449. On the other hand, it could also be used to reproduce
and sell copyrighted television programming, which would
constitute infringement. Ibid. The lower court found the
Betamax maker liable because the tape recorder was “not
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594 COX
COMMUNICATIONS, INC. v. SONY MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT
Opinion of the Court
suitable for any substantial noninfringing use” and infringe-
ment
“was either the most conspicuous use or the major use
of the Betamax product.” Id., at 428 (internal quotation
marks omitted). This Court reversed, concluding that “[t]he
Betamax is . . . capable of substantial noninfringing uses”—
like personal use—so “sale of such equipment to the general
public does not constitute contributory infringement.” Id.,
at 456.
These two forms of contributory infringement track patent
law. See Grokster, 545 U. S., at 942 (Ginsburg, J., concur-
ring). Under 35 U. S. C. § 271(b), “[w]hoever actively in-
duces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an in-
fringer.” Such liability requires that the party express “an
affrmative intent that the product be used to infringe.”
Grokster, 545 U. S., at 936. Under § 271(c), a party is liable
when it sells a product used for infringement “knowing the
same to be especially made or especially adapted for use in
an infringement of such patent.”
This Court has repeatedly made clear that mere knowl-
edge that a service will be used to infringe is insuffcient to
establish the required intent to infringe. In Kalem Co., the
Court explained that “mere indifferent supposition or knowl-
edge on the part of the seller” that the buyer will use the
product unlawfully is “not enough” to make the seller li-
able for the buyer's conduct. 222 U. S., at 62. In Sony,
the Court explained that “[t]here is no precedent in the
law of copyright” for liability based only “on the fact that
[the defendant] has sold equipment with constructive
knowledge of the fact that its customers may use that
equipment to make unauthorized copies of copyrighted mate-
rial.” 464 U. S., at 439. And, in Grokster, the Court con-
frmed that “a court would be unable to fnd contributory
infringement liability merely based on a failure to take af-
frmative steps to prevent infringement.” 545 U. S., at 939,
n. 12.
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Opinion of the Court
III
Thus,
Cox is not contributorily liable for the infringement
of Sony's copyrights. 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 precedents.
Cox neither induced its users' infringement nor provided
a service tailored to infringement. As for inducement, Cox
did not “induce” or “encourage” its subscribers to infringe
in any manner. Id., at 930. Sony provided no “evidence of
express promotion, marketing, and intent to promote” in-
fringement. Id., at 926. And, Cox repeatedly discouraged
copyright infringement by sending warnings, suspending
services, and terminating accounts. As for providing a
service tailored to infringement, Cox's Internet service was
clearly “capable of `substantial' or `commercially signifcant'
noninfringing uses.” Id., at 942 (Ginsburg, J., concurring).
Cox did not t ai lor its serv ice to make copyr ight i n-
fringement easier. Cox simply provided Internet access,
wh ich is used for many pur poses other than copyr ight
infringement.
The Fourth Circuit found otherwise based only on its Cir-
cuit precedent establishing a new form of contributory liabil-
ity. The court did not suggest that Cox induced its users to
infringe. 93 F. 4th, at 235, n. 4. And, it did not deny that
Cox's service was “capable of substantial lawful use and not
designed to promote infringement.” Id., at 236. Rather,
the court held that “supplying a product with knowledge that
the recipient will use it to infringe copyrights is . . . suffcient
for contributory infringement.” Ibid.; see also BMG, 881
F. 3d, at 311–312. The Fourth Circuit's holding thus went
beyond the two forms of liability recognized in Grokster and
Sony. It also conficted with this Court's repeated admoni-
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596 COX
COMMUNICATIONS, INC. v. SONY MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT
Sotomayor, J., concurring in judgment
tion that contributory liability cannot rest only on a provid-
er
's knowledge of infringement and insuffcient action to pre-
vent it. See Kalem Co., 222 U. S., at 62; Sony, 464 U. S., at
439; Grokster, 545 U. S., at 939, n. 12.
IV
Finally, Sony argues that the DMCA safe harbor would
have no effect if Internet service providers are not liable for
providing Internet service to known infringers. Brief for
Respondents 38. The DMCA safe harbor protects Internet
service providers that terminate repeat infringers “in appro-
priate circumstances.” 17 U. S. C. § 512(i)(1)(A). Sony ar-
gues that Congress must have enacted the DMCA on the
presumption that Internet service providers could be held
liable in cases such as these.
Sony overreads the DMCA. Sony does not contend that
the DMCA expressly imposes liability for Internet service
providers who serve known infringers. It does not. The
DMCA merely creates new defenses from liability for such
providers. And, the DMCA made clear that failure to com-
ply with the safe-harbor rules “shall not bear adversely upon
. . . a defense by the service provider that the service provid-
er's conduct is not infringing.” § 512(l).
V
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Cir-
cuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further pro-
ceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Jackson joins,
concurring in the judgment.
Cox Communications, an internet service provider, re-
ceives thousands of notices every day that specifc Cox-
supplied internet connections have been used to infringe copy-
rights. The Court granted certiorari to decide whether Cox

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597
Sotomayor, J., concurring in judgment
can be held secondarily liable for copyright infringement
committed
by others on its network because Cox knowingly
continues to service specifc internet connections that have
been, and w i l l conti nue to be, used to commit that
infringement.
The majority holds that Cox is not liable solely because its
conduct does not ft within the two theories of secondary
liability previously applied by this Court. In so doing, the
majority, without any meaningful explanation, unnecessarily
limits secondary liability even though this Court's prece-
dents have left open the possibility that other common-law
theories of such liability, like aiding and abetting, could apply
in the copyright context. By ignoring those past decisions,
the majority also upends the statutory incentive structure
that Congress created.
I nonetheless agree with the majority that Cox cannot be
held liable here for a different reason. Plaintiffs cannot
prove that Cox had the requisite intent to aid copyright in-
fringement for Cox to be liable on a common-law aiding-and-
abetting theory. I therefore concur in the judgment.
I
The Copyright Act does not expressly provide for second-
ary liability. See Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City
Studios, Inc., 464 U. S. 417, 434 (1984). Still, this Court has
recognized that there are two types of secondary liability
under the Copyright Act: vicarious and contributory liability.
See ibid. The former attaches when a party has control
over another's infringing activity and fails to stop it, and the
latter attaches when a party materially contributes in some
way to another's infringement. See Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 545 U. S. 913, 930 (2005); see
also Gershwin Publishing Corp. v. Columbia Artists Mgmt.,
Inc., 443 F. 2d 1159, 1162 (CA2 1971) (discussing vicarious
and contributory liability). This case comes to the Court
with only contributory liability remaining at issue.
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ENTERTAINMENT
Sotomayor, J., concurring in judgment
As the majority explains, this Court's cases have held that
contr
ibutory liability for copyright infringement may attach
in at least two circumstances. The frst is when a defendant
distributes or provides a product or service that is incapable
of “commercially signifcant noninfringing uses.” Sony, 464
U. S., at 442. In other words, the product or service must
be “ `good for nothing else' but infringement.” Grokster, 545
U. S., at 932. The Court applied that doctrine in Sony, 464
U. S. 417, and held that Sony was not liable for copyright
infringement for selling the Betamax, a tape-recorder device
that enabled users to record television shows for later watch-
ing. Id., at 442. Regardless of whether the Betamax could
be used to commit infringement, the Court reasoned, it was
also capable of “commercially signifcant noninfringing uses,”
such as recording a show for personal viewing at home after
it aired. Ibid.
The second circumstance in which contributory liability
may attach is when a party induces another to commit in-
fringement. The Court applied this rule in Grokster, 545
U. S. 913. There, the defendants distributed peer-to-peer
fle sharing software that had lawful uses but also enabled
massive amounts of copyright infringement as users shared
copyrighted materials with one another without authoriza-
tion. Id., at 919–922. Drawing from the common law, the
Court held that a party can be liable for the infringements
of another if it takes “ `active steps . . . to encourage direct
infringement,' such as advertising an infringing use or in-
structing how to engage in an infringing use.” Id., at 936
(citation omitted). The Court found that the software dis-
tributors had done just that by advertising their software to
users of previous infringing services, declining to implement
flters or other policies to weed out infringing content, and
relying on a revenue model tied to high-volume use of their
software. Id., at 939–940.
II
I agree with the majority that neither of the two prior
theories of secondary liability applied by this Court covers
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Cox's conduct. See ante, at 595–596. The majority is
wrong
, however, that those are or should be the only two
forms of secondary liability for copyright infringement.
The majority's artifcial limiting of secondary liability is sup-
ported by neither precedent nor statute.
A
To determine whether Cox may be held liable, the major-
ity starts by correctly explaining that “[t]he provider of a
service is contributorily liable for the user's infringement
only if it intended that the provided service be used for in-
fringement.” Ante, at 592; see infra, at 602–608. The ma-
jority, however, errs in the very next sentence. It asserts,
with no meaningful explanation, that “[t]he intent required
for contributory liability can be shown only if the party in-
duced the infringement or the provided service is tailored to
that infringement.” Ante, at 593. Because plaintiffs do not
satisfy those theories of contributory liability, according to
the majority, their claims cannot succeed.
The infexible limit the majority imposes is nowhere to be
found in either Sony or Grokster, the only authorities that
the majority cites, see ante, at 592–593. Beginning with
Sony, although that case acknowledged that the Copyright
Act does not expressly provide for secondary liability, it also
clarifed that “[t]he absence of such express language in the
copyright statute does not preclude the imposition of ” sec-
ondary liability, such as vicarious and contributory liability,
because both forms of liability are “imposed in virtually all
areas of the law.” 464 U. S., at 434–435; see id., at 436 (Con-
tributory liability principles are “ `recognized in every part
of the law' ”). Far from supporting the majority's limitation
of secondary liability, Sony teaches that the scope of second-
ary liability for copyright infringement should be defned by
reference to other areas of the law. Id., at 435–437.
The Court reinforced this point in Grokster. In that case,
the Ninth Circuit attempted to limit contributory liability to
the circumstances Sony confronted. This Court reversed,
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ENTERTAINMENT
Sotomayor, J., concurring in judgment
explaining that Sony neither “displace[d] other theories of
secondary
liability” nor “foreclose[d] rules of fault-based lia-
bility derived from the common law.” 545 U. S., at 934–935.
Instead, all Sony did was “limi[t] imputing culpable intent as
a matter of law from the characteristics or uses of a distrib-
uted product.” 545 U. S., at 934. “[N]othing in Sony,” the
Court said, “requires courts to ignore evidence of intent if
there is such evidence.” Ibid.
Properly understood, Sony and Grokster preserved other
forms of secondary liability derived from the common law.
The majority, however, does not even mention that Grokster
expressly held the door open to other common-law liability
rules. Instead, all the majority offers is that it is “loath to
expand [secondary] liability” further based on the general
principle that “[o]rdinarily, when Congress intends to impose
secondary liability, it does so expressly.” Ante, at 592.
That principle, however, is irrelevant here because this
Court held over 40 years ago that the Copyright Act im-
pliedly provides for secondary liability. See Sony, 464 U. S.,
at 434–435. Stare decisis requires this Court to apply that
holding fairly, not ignore or artifcially constrain it. Indeed,
“stare decisis carries enhanced force when a decision . . .
interprets a statute.” Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment,
LLC, 576 U. S. 446, 456 (2015). Whatever the majority may
think of Sony and Grokster, those decisions have “effectively
become part of the [copyright] statutory scheme.” Kimble,
576 U. S., at 456. Whether that statutory scheme imposes
liability under these circumstances must be decided accord-
ing to what those cases said, not what the majority might
wish they had said. Adhering to precedent is even more
important where, as here, Congress has legislated based on
this Court's decisions.
B
The majority's limiting of secondary liability here disman-
tles the statutory incentive structure that Congress created.
Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

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601
Sotomayor, J., concurring in judgment
(DMCA) in 1998, 14 years after this Court held in Sony that
the
Copyright Act impliedly provided for secondary liability.
At the time, the internet was exploding in popularity. With-
out knowing more about the outer bounds of secondary liabil-
ity for copyright infringement, and faced with a rapidly
changing technological landscape, Congress included in the
DMCA a safe harbor that shields internet service providers
(ISPs) like Cox from secondary liability for copyright in-
fringement. To gain that protection, they must “adop[t] and
reasonably implemen[t] . . . a policy that provides for the
termination in appropriate circumstances” of subscribers
who repeatedly infringe copyrights using the ISP's network.
17 U. S. C. §§ 512(a) and (i)(1)(A). Importantly, Congress did
not provide that ISPs could never be secondarily liable for
copyright infringement. Instead, it struck a balance by cre-
ating incentives for ISPs to take reasonable steps to prevent
copyright infringement on their networks, while also assur-
ing ISPs that they do not need to take on the impossible task
of responding to every instance of infringement on their
networks.
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 regard-
less 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 copy-
righted material. That ISP also faces no liability even if it
sells a connection to a customer who walks into the store and
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ENTERTAINMENT
Sotomayor, J., concurring in judgment
says that he needs a new internet connection because the
other
, more scrupulous ISP in town cut his connection after
years of unabated piracy.
The majority's decision thus permits ISPs to sell an in-
ternet connection to every single infringer who wants one
without fear of liability and without lifting a fnger to pre-
vent infringement. It also means that Cox is free to aban-
don its current policy of responding to copyright infringe-
ment. As Cox's counsel conceded at oral argument, under
the rule the majority adopts today, the safe harbor provision
will not “d[o] anything at all” going forward, id., at 28–29.
Congress did not enact the safe harbor just so that this Court
could eviscerate it.*
III
Instead of artifcially limiting secondary liability, the
Court should have examined whether some other “rul[e] of
fault-based liability derived from the common law” might
hold Cox liable for copyright infringement committed on its
network. Grokster, 545 U. S., at 934–935. Plaintiffs argue
that Cox is liable because it materially contributed to in-
fringement by servicing internet connections that it knew
would be used to commit infringement. That argument is
rooted in the common-law doctrine of aiding and abetting.
That doctrine, however, requires plaintiffs to show that Cox
intended to aid infringement, and the facts of this case fore-
close that inference.
A
This Court has addressed common-law civil aiding-and-
abetting liability twice in recent years. In both cases, it
held that aiding-and-abetting liability requires proof that the
*Under the majority's view, ISPs could still face secondary liability if
they design their service to facilitate infringement or if they promote their
service as infringement friendly. The safe harbor, however, is not in-
tended to help an ISP facing liability on either of those two theories be-
cause it requires that an anti-infringement policy be “reasonably imple-
mented.” 17 U. S. C. § 512(i)(1)(A).
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defendant aided another with the intent of helping that other
person
succeed in committing wrongful conduct.
The frst of this Court's recent cases is Twitter, Inc. v.
Taamneh, 598 U. S. 471 (2023). There, the plaintiff alleged
that social media platforms had aided and abetted a terrorist
attack by ISIS because they knowingly hosted content,
posted by ISIS and its followers, that was intended to spread
ISIS propaganda, recruit members, and raise funds. Id., at
481. The platforms also allegedly promoted that content via
their algorithms. Ibid. The plaintiffs asserted that the
platforms had not done enough to “detect and remove a sub-
stantial number of ISIS-related accounts, posts, and vid-
eos.” Ibid.
This Court held that the platforms could not be held liable
as aiders and abettors based on the complaint's allegations.
After surveying lower court cases and common-law sources,
the Court identifed the “conceptual core that has animated
aiding-and-abetting liability for centuries: that the defendant
consciously and culpably `participate[s]' in a wrongful act so
as to help `make it succeed.' ” Id., at 493 (quoting Nye & Nis-
sen v. United States, 336 U. S. 613, 619 (1949)). Put another
way, “the defendant has to take some `affrmative act' `with
the intent of facilitating the offense's commission.' ” 598
U. S., at 490 (quoting Rosemond v. United States, 572 U. S.
65, 71 (2014)). The plaintiffs' claims did not plausibly meet
this standard, however, because they failed to allege that
pro-ISIS accounts or content received “any special treat-
ment.” 598 U. S., at 498. Nor did they allege any other
facts suffcient to overcome the “attenuated . . . nexus” be-
tween the platforms' actions and the ISIS attack or establish
that the platforms intended to aid that attack. Id., at 506.
Importantly, Twitter emphasized that “the concep[t] of aid-
ing and abetting ” does not “lend [itself] to crisp, bright-line
distinctions,” ibid., but rather “should be understood in light
of the common law,” id., at 497. The common law, in turn,
recognizes that intent can sometimes be inferred from what
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the defendant knew when he acted. The Second Restate-
ment
of Torts explains that this kind of knowledge-based in-
tent can be found where “the actor knows that the conse-
quences are certain, or substantially certain, to result from
his act, and still goes ahead.” Restatement (Second) of
Torts § 8A, Comment b (1963–1964). In these circum-
stances, the actor “is treated by the law as if he had in fact
desired to produce the result.” Ibid. For example, some-
one who gives a gun to another, knowing with certainty that
the other person will shoot someone with it, could be found
to have intentionally aided a shooting even if he did not de-
sire for anyone to be shot. If the recipient shoots someone
with that gun, then under the common law, the person who
gave the shooter the gun could be held liable for aiding and
abetting the shooting. See id., § 876(b) and Comment d
(1977); Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Economic
Harm § 28, Comment c (2018).
This theory of intent requires a suffciently specifc show-
ing of knowledge. In Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Es-
tados Unidos Mexicanos, 605 U. S. 280 (2025), this Court re-
jected secondary liability for gun manufacturers whose guns
were used by Mexican drug cartels to commit violence in
Mexico due to insuffcient allegations of intent. Id., at 291.
There, Mexico alleged that the gun manufacturers had aided
and abetted the unlawful gun sales that routed guns to those
cartels. Id., at 287–289. As the Court observed, there was
“little doubt that, as the complaint asserts, some [unlawful]
sales take place—and that the manufacturers know they do.”
Id., at 294. Nonetheless, applying the principles of aiding-
and-abetting liability discussed in Twitter, the Court con-
cluded that Mexico had not plausibly alleged that the gun
manufacturers had “ `participate[d] in' ” the illicit sale of guns
to the cartels such that they sought “ `by [their] action to
make' ” those sales succeed. 605 U. S., at 294 (second alter-
ation in original). It observed that Mexico had “se[t] for
itself a high bar” to clear because it did not “pinpoint, as
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605
Sotomayor, J., concurring in judgment
most aiding-and-abetting claims do, any specifc criminal
transac
tions.” Ibid. Instead, Mexico “level[ed] a more
general accusation: that all the manufacturers assist some
number of unidentifed rogue gun dealers in making a host of
frearm sales in violation of various legal bars.” Ibid. The
“systemic nature” of those more generalized allegations, the
Court explained, required “plausible allegations of `perva-
sive, systemic, and culpable assistance.' ” Ibid. (quoting
Twitter, 598 U. S., at 502).
Mexico's allegations failed to clear that high bar. To
start, Mexico did not allege that the gun manufacturers had
treated unlawful actors any differently from lawful actors.
605 U. S., at 295. Mexico also failed to account for the fact
that gun manufacturers sold the guns to middlemen distribu-
tors, whom the manufacturers did not control, who then sold
the guns to illicit dealers. Id., at 295–296. Even if the gun
manufacturers knew everything the distributors did, the
Court continued, Mexico failed to allege plausibly that the
manufacturers knew, or even could learn, which dealers were
selling guns to the cartels. Id., at 296–297. Without that
knowledge, or further evidence of the manufacturers' intent,
the Court held that Mexico's allegations did not satisfy the
standards necessary to impose aiding and abetting on the
manufacturers because those allegations did not plausibly
show that they had participated in the unlawful sales to
make them succeed. Id., at 296–299.
B
These principles of aiding-and-abetting liability and intent
resolve this case. Plaintiffs must prove that Cox intended
to aid, and therefore help make succeed, copyright infringe-
ment committed by those who use its network. To do so,
plaintiffs point out that Cox, having received copyright-
violation notices, knew that specifc connections it services
have been, and will continue to be, used to infringe copy-
rights. Because Cox nonetheless continued to service those
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ENTERTAINMENT
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connections, plaintiffs argue that the jury could have found
that
Cox intended to facilitate infringement committed using
those connections.
This record, however, cannot support fnding the necessary
intent for aiding-and-abetting liability to attach. To begin,
Cox is merely supplying internet service to its customers.
Nothing about that conduct is inherently culpable: Most in-
ternet traffc is lawful, and supplying an internet connection
is just as consistent with lawful purposes as it is with unlaw-
ful purposes. See id., at 292 (“[R]outine and general activ-
ity that happens on occasion to assist in a crime . . . is un-
likely to count as aiding and abetting ”).
Nor have plaintiffs shown that Cox intended to aid specifc
instances of infringement. That is because, based on plain-
tiffs' evidence, Cox does not actually know that specifc users
will commit infringement using Cox's network. Cox sup-
plies internet connections to a wide range of customers,
ranging from single users all the way to smaller regional
ISPs. When Cox receives a copyright-violation notice, how-
ever, the notice specifes only which connection was used to
infringe, not who used it to commit infringement.
That informational gap is fatal here. As Smith & Wesson
explained, aiding-and-abetting liability most commonly at-
taches where the defendant aided a specifc instance of un-
lawful conduct. Id., at 294. Often, that requires the plain-
tiff to show that the defendant, at a minimum, knew who the
“principals” in the alleged unlawful acts were. Id., at 295–
296. Here, however, plaintiffs have not shown that Cox had
specifc knowledge of who committed the infringing conduct.
Take, for example, a connection sold to a single-family home.
Cox, after receiving three notices of copyright violations,
would know only that that home's connection is substantially
certain to be used again in the future to commit infringe-
ment. Yet Cox would have no knowledge (indeed, plaintiffs
have not shown that Cox has any way of knowing) who
within the household committed infringement. Nor, for that
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matter, have plaintiffs shown any way for Cox to know if the
i
nfringer was a neighbor who might have the Wi-Fi pass-
word. Without that knowledge, it is not reasonable to infer
that Cox intended to aid infringement committed by another
person just because it provided an internet connection to
some unknown infringer.
This problem is even more glaring when it comes to con-
nections that serve hundreds or thousands of users. For in-
stance, Cox provides internet service to regional ISPs who
in turn supply internet service to thousands of users. Given
the numbers involved, it is hardly surprising that Cox has
received many copyright-violation notices as to connections
supplied to regional ISPs. Still, Cox does not know who
among a regional ISP's thousands of customers is committing
infringement, even if it knows that someone has infringed in
the past and that someone will infringe in the future.
In this scenario, the regional ISP is akin to the middlemen
in Smith & Wesson: Like the middlemen who purchased law-
ful frearms and then redirected them to a mix of lawful and
unlawful dealers, the regional ISP is purchasing lawful in-
ternet service and redirecting it to a range of users, some of
whom will use the service lawfully and some who will use it
unlawfully. See id., at 294–296. Furthermore, just as the
gun manufacturers in Smith & Wesson did not have control
over the middlemen, Cox similarly does not have control over
the regional ISP. Id., at 295–296. Given this degree of re-
moval from the infringing activity and Cox's incomplete
knowledge, Cox cannot be found to have intended to aid in
any specifc instance of infringement committed using the
connection that Cox provides to the regional ISP. The same
is true for connections Cox provides to university housing,
hospitals, military bases, and other places that are likely to
have many different users.
Without proof that Cox knew more about individual in-
stances of infringement, and without evidence of “pervasive,
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608 COX
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generalized theory of liability, see Twitter, 598 U. S., at 502,
plai
ntiffs have at most shown that Cox was “indifferent” to
infringement conducted via the connections it sells. Id., at
500. Mere indifference, however, is not enough for aiding
and abetting liability to attach. Smith & Wesson, 605 U. S.,
at 297.
***
The facts of this case do not establish the requisite intent
needed to hold Cox liable for infringement that occurred on
its network. Because the majority needlessly curtails sec-
ondary liability in a manner inconsistent with both precedent
and statute, I concur only in the judgment.
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Reporter’s Note
The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication
and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination
makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of
publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions
for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of
the Court. A list of counsel who argued or fled briefs in this case, and
who were members of the bar of this Court at the time this case was
argued, has been inserted following the syllabus. Other revisions may
include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant
punctuation. The following additional edits were made:
p. 583, line 16: “six” is changed to “6”
p. 583, line 17: “(IP)” is inserted after “Protocol”
p. 583, line 8 from bottom: “two” is changed to “2”
p. 585, line 28: “repeated” is changed to “repeat”
p. 588, line 2 from bottom: “repeated” is changed to “repeat”
p. 602, last line: “aiding-and-betting ” is changed to “aiding-and-abetting ”
p. 607, frst line: “show” is changed to “shown”