What Clarence Thomas’ opinion really means for online piracy

One of the Supreme Court’s latest rulings has raised concerns that internet service providers will be let off the hook when it comes to copyright infringement. The country’s highest court recently decided that Cox Communications was not liable for failing to prevent customers from using its internet services for online piracy. Justice Clarence Thomas ruled for the majority that an internet service provider can only be liable for this kind of activity when it induces customers to do so, or when it offers a service that can only be used in a way that violates copyright. The decision effectively shields ISPs from legal consequences even if they know customers are using internet services to pirate copyrighted works, or are likely to do so in the future—as long as the companies aren’t actively encouraging people to break the law. In her concurrence, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that Thomas was being too easy on ISPs. Sotomayor wrote that an ISP now “faces no liability even if it sells a connection to a customer who walks into the store and says that he needs a new internet connection because the other, more scrupulous ISP in town, cut his connection after years of unabated piracy.”