IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—U.S.: Grande Communications is first apparent beneficiary of Cox ruling, (Apr 7, 2026)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

The case against the internet service provider goes back to the Fifth Circuit—under much narrower rules.

A Texas-based internet service provider will be the first immediate beneficiary of a recent landmark decision narrowing the scope of contributory infringement copyright liability, the Supreme Court has announced. The Court, in summarily vacating and remanding a lower court decision that held the service provider liable for the infringing activities of its users, made clear that it would not hesitate to insist that lower courts apply the new doctrine in pending as well as future actions (Grande Communications Networks v. UMG Recordings, Inc., No. 24-967, (U.S. Apr. 6, 2026)).

The lawsuit at issue is one of many in a decades-long dispute between entertainment industries and communications providers over peer-to-peer file sharing services. In this case, the major record labels alleged that Grande Communications failed to terminate the accounts of users that it knew to be sharing copyrighted works over a file-sharing platform called BitTorent. After a nearly month-long trial in the fall of 2022, a jury returned a unanimous verdict finding the service provider contributorily liable for copyright infringement and assessing statutory damages of $46.7 million. The trial court denied the service provider’s motion for judgment as a matter of law and the Fifth Circuit affirmed, leading to this petition.

The service provider then filed a petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court. The petition argued that a service provider should not be held liable for contributory infringement merely because they allowed known infringers to continue to use the platform. Rather, the petition argued, the service provide could only be liable as a contributory infringer if it took affirmative acts to “induce” that infringement. The petition specifically took note of another petition then pending before the Court, in a case involving Cox Communications, that raised similar issues. “This Court’s immediate intervention is warranted—whether here, in Cox, or both,” the petition argued.

The internet service got its wish. Two weeks ago, as IP Law Daily covered, the Supreme Court unanimously sided with Cox on the scope of contributory liability. The majority opinion, written by Justice Thomas, held that contributory liability in the copyright context was limited to the two settings in which it is applicable in patent law: where a product is specifically designed for infringement or where product users are specifically induced to infringe. An ISP that simply allowed its services to be used to used for infringement, even by customers who it knew had a history of infringement, the Court emphasized, did not qualify under that standard. (Justices Sotomayor and Jackson concurred on the narrower grounds that Cox knew only which accounts had a history of infringement, not which particular users of those accounts had done so).

The Court’s brief order held: “The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for further consideration in light of Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, 607 U. S. ___ (2026).”

The Case is Dkt. No. 24-967.

Attorneys: Daniel L. Geyser (Haynes and Boone, LLP) for Grande Communications Networks, LLC.

Companies: Grande Communications Networks, LLC; UMG Recordings, Inc.

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