How Courts Are Starting To Apply Cox

When the Supreme Court reversed a billion-dollar copyright verdict against Cox Communications in March, the message seemed clear: merely knowing your service is being used to infringe copyrights isn't enough to make you liable.

Three months later, courts are beginning to fill in what "more" actually means. A handful of district courts have now applied Cox to copyright disputes, one involving NVIDIA and another X (formerly Twitter). Although decided on Rule 12 motions (where allegations must be taken as true), they tell us how courts are developing a key post-Cox framework.

The Cox Decision

The Supreme Court's decision in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, 607 U.S. ___ (2026) held that contributory copyright liability requires intent, and intent can be shown in only two ways: the defendant either actively induced infringement through specific acts, or provided a service with no substantial non-infringing uses. Cox, an internet service provider that had received