The Trump administration weighed in on Cox’s side, arguing that ISPs should not be held “liable for contributory copyright infringement for failing to terminate subscribers after receiving notices of infringement.” The Trump admin’s Department of Justice said that making ISPs liable for their customers’ infringement could “encourage providers to avoid substantial monetary liability by terminating subscribers after receiving a single notice of alleged infringement.”
The record labels’ lawsuit complained that Frontier “received hundreds of thousands of copyright infringement notices from copyright owners” but “provided known repeat infringers with continued access to and use of its network and failed to terminate the accounts of, or otherwise take any meaningful action against, those subscribers.”
ISPs have argued that infringement notices sent on behalf of record labels and movie companies are unreliable and that they shouldn’t have to terminate customers based on unproven allegations. ISPs have frequently pointed out that terminating customer accounts would hurt people using the same account as someone accused of piracy.
ISPs terminate users who appear to be the most prolific offenders, but they don’t disconnect enough pirates to satisfy the demands of litigious copyright holders. When record labels sued Frontier in 2021, the ISP told Ars that “Frontier is not alleged to have done anything directly to infringe any copyright owner’s rights, and in fact has terminated many customers about whom copyright owners have complained. Frontier believes that it has done nothing wrong and will vigorously defend itself.”
