Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, along with internet service provider Altice USA have jointly asked a federal court in Texas to give them more time to file a status report in their long-running copyright lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The case has been put on hold since August 2025, pending the Supreme Court\u2019s decision on Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment<\/b>, which was a nearly similar case where music rightsholders accuse an ISP of turning a blind eye to music piracy on their networks.<\/p>\n
In a landmark decision on March 25, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously<\/a>\u00a0in Cox v.\u00a0Sony\u00a0Music\u00a0that ISPs cannot be held liable for copyright infringement committed by their users, unless the provider actively induced the infringement or provided a service tailored to that infringement \u2014 meaning a service not capable of substantial noninfringing uses.<\/p>\n On Monday (April 6), the labels and Altice filed a joint motion, seeking for a 14-day extension to submit a status report to the court. The new deadline falls on April 22<\/b>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Parties met and conferred on April 2, 2026<\/b>, but would benefit from additional time to analyze the Cox decision and confer with their respective clients before submitting a status report to the Court. The Parties therefore respectfully request a 14-day extension of time to file the status report with this Court to comply with the Order, to and including April 22, 2026<\/b>,\u201d according to the joint motion, which you can read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The case has been stuck in limbo since at least August 2025 when jury selection was cancelled amid the Cox v. Sony developments.<\/p>\n Sony Music Entertainment <\/b>and Warner Music Group<\/b> sued Altice<\/a> in December 2023, accusing it of \u201cknowingly contribut[ing] to, and reap[ing] substantial profits from, massive copyright infringement committed by thousands of its subscribers.\u201d Altice owns the Optimum<\/b> broadband and cable brand.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Parties met and conferred on April 2, 2026<\/b>, but would benefit from additional time to analyze the Cox decision and confer with their respective clients before submitting a status report to the Court.”<\/p>\n Joint Motion by SonY Music, Warner Music and Altice<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The complaint listed in its\u00a0Exhibit A\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0Exhibit B\u00a0<\/a>attachments over\u00a06,700<\/b>\u00a0sound recordings and\u00a04,000\u00a0<\/b>compositions respectively that were allegedly infringed by Altice subscribers using the BitTorrent<\/b> protocol between 2020 and 2023.<\/p>\n The lawsuit cited the maximum statutory fine of\u00a0$150,000<\/b>\u00a0per alleged violation, implying that damages sought by the music companies from Altice USA could exceed\u00a0USD $1.6 billion<\/b>.<\/p>\n Sony and Warner\u2019s complaint came a year after Altice\u00a0was also hit with a\u00a0$1-billion<\/b>\u00a0lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0on behalf of music rightsholders including\u00a0Universal Music Group<\/b>,\u00a0BMG<\/b>, and\u00a0Concord Music Group<\/b>, who sought to have the internet provider held accountable for \u201cmillions\u201d of alleged infringements of \u201cthousands\u201d of their songs.<\/p>\n Altice settled<\/a> that lawsuit in August 2024 and the court dismissed<\/a> the case \u201cwith prejudice,\u201d ensuring it will never be reopened.<\/p>\n The latest development comes as the Cox v. Sony ruling set a new precedent that shielded ISPs from copyright owners\u2019 infringement lawsuits. Justice\u00a0Clarence<\/b>\u00a0Thomas<\/b>\u00a0wrote<\/a>: \u201cUnder our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights.\u201d<\/p>\n The same precedent prompted the Supreme Court on Monday to vacate a lower court ruling that\u00a0ordered<\/a>\u00a0internet provider Grande<\/b> Communications<\/b> to pay $46.7 million<\/b> in damages to a group of record labels for infringement in November 2022.<\/p>\n Grande\u00a0Communications, a Texas-based subsidiary of\u00a0Astound Business Solutions<\/b>, filed for its petition for certiorari, or a review of a lower court\u2019s decision, after losing its copyright infringement case against a group of record labels in 2022.<\/p>\n The company was sued by the major labels in 2017, alleging it ignored years of infringement notices and took no meaningful action to discourage what they describe as \u201ctheft\u201d of copyrights, according to the original complaint, which you can\u00a0read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The court sided with the copyright owners in 2022, and awarded them $46.7 million<\/b> in damages. In 2023, the trial court\u00a0denied<\/a>\u00a0Grande\u2019s motion and by October 2024, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals\u00a0upheld<\/a>\u00a0the liability finding, prompting Grande to\u00a0file for a petition for certiorari<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court\u2019s latest order vacated the 2022 judgment and remanded the case to the Fifth Circuit for reconsideration in light of Cox v. Sony Music.<\/p>\n Beyond Altice and Grande, the Cox v. Sony ruling\u00a0also prompted Elon Musk\u2019s X Corp<\/b>\u00a0to argue that music publishers\u2019 long-running copyright infringement case against the platform should be thrown out.<\/p>\n In a court filing obtained by MBW, dated March 27 \u2014 just two days after the Cox decision was handed down \u2014 X\u2019s lawyers told the Nashville federal court that \u201cunder Cox, the liability theories that survived X\u2019s motion to dismiss fail as a matter of law.\u201d<\/p>\n Elsewhere, record labels\u00a0Sony,\u00a0Universal,\u00a0Warner\u00a0<\/b>and\u00a0ABKCO Music<\/b>\u00a0also\u00a0filed<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a0$2.6 billion<\/b>\u00a0lawsuit against\u00a0Verizon<\/b>\u00a0in 2024 over similar allegations.<\/p>\n Aside from ISPs, Meta<\/b>\u00a0recently\u00a0invoked<\/a>\u00a0the Cox ruling in its latest summary judgment filing against\u00a0Epidemic<\/b>\u00a0Sound<\/b>.\u00a0Epidemic Sound\u00a0filed a second copyright infringement lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the\u00a0Facebook<\/strong>\u00a0parent in December, alleging that the tech giant continues to infringe the music company\u2019s catalog across Facebook<\/strong>,\u00a0Instagram<\/strong>\u00a0and WhatsApp<\/strong>.<\/p>\n