WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court

ruled on Wednesday Cox Communications cannot be held liable for

piracy by its internet service subscribers of songs owned by

Sony Music, Warner Music Group ( WMG ), Universal Music

Group and other labels, ending their

billion-dollar-plus music copyright lawsuit.

The 9-0 ruling overturned a lower court's decision to order

a new trial to determine how much the internet service provider

owed the record labels for a form of liability called

contributory copyright infringement. Cox had said a retrial

could have produced a verdict against the Atlanta-based ISP of

as much as $1.5 billion.

More than 50 labels joined together to sue Cox in 2018.

Internet service providers like Cox are generally not considered

liable under U.S. law for infringement by their users if they

take reasonable measures to address it. But the labels accused

Cox, the largest unit of privately owned Cox Enterprises, of

failing to respond to thousands of infringement notices, cut off

internet access for repeat infringers or take other

piracy-deterrence steps.

A jury in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2019 found that Cox owed

the labels $1 billion for user infringement of more than 10,000

copyrights. The jury found Cox liable both for contributory

infringement and vicarious infringement, two forms of secondary

copyright infringement liability.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of

Appeals threw out the damages award in 2024. The 4th Circuit

ordered a retrial on the award's size after affirming the jury's

finding of contributory infringement but reversing its finding

of vicarious liability.

Contributory infringement involves holding parties liable

for someone else's infringement because they knew about it and

contributed to it. Vicarious infringement involves holding

parties liable for someone else's infringement because they had

the ability to control the infringement and benefited

financially from it.

Cox argued that the position taken by the labels in the case

would expand the concept of contributory infringement too

broadly. Cox said this stance would threaten to cut off access

for thousands of innocent internet users including "entire

households, coffee shops, hospitals, universities" and others

"merely because some unidentified person was previously alleged

to have used the connection to infringe."

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in December. A

lawyer for President Donald Trump's administration argued in

support of Cox. Alphabet's Google, Amazon ( AMZN ),

Microsoft ( MSFT ) and other internet-focused tech companies

supported Cox in the case. Music, film and book industry trade

groups backed the labels.