Supreme Court deals blow to music industry fight against illegal downloads
U.S. Supreme Court building on Wednesday, March 18, 2026. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that internet service providers cannot be held liable for illegal downloads of copyrighted material like music, movies, and TV shows simply because some of their customers are known to engage in piracy.
The unanimous decision reversed a $1.5 billion damages award to Sony Music Entertainment in a suit against Cox Communications, the third largest broadband provider in the U.S., in a setback for the entertainment industry’s efforts to crack down on rampant, illicit distribution of copyrighted material online.
“Cox provided Internet service to its subscribers, but it did not intend for that service to be used to commit copyright infringement,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas in the court’s opinion. “Holding Cox liable merely for failing to terminate Internet service to infringing accounts would expand secondary copyright liability beyond our precedents.”
Copyright owners had insisted that the risk of being sued creates an incentive for internet service providers to help root out online piracy and suspend the accounts of those suspected of dealing in protected material.
The victory for Cox effectively blunts entertainment industry efforts to root out online piracy by leveraging service providers. It had warned that a contrary ruling could have forced them into bankruptcy and potentially eliminated internet access entirely in some communities.
Federal law makes it a crime to directly infringe on a copyright, but secondary liability by another party involved in copyright infringement — such as internet service providers — remains an evolving area of law.
As a general rule, anyone who “materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another may be held liable as a contributory infringer,” lawyers for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), an entertainment industry trade group, argued in a brief to the high court.
Thomas said the court rejects that view.
“The provider of a service is contributorily liable for the user’s infringement only if it intended that the provided service be used for infringement,” he wrote. “The intent required for contributory liability can be shown only if the party induced the infringement or the provided service is tailored to that infringement.”
Nearly 19 billion downloads of pirated movies and TV shows were made using online peer-to-peer software in 2023, according to the MPAA. The copyright violations cost the U.S. economy more than $29 billion and “hundreds of thousands of jobs,” the group estimates.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson concurred in the judgment of the court but said they would not have imposed as stringent limits on liability.
“Instead of artificially limiting secondary liability, the Court should have examined whether some other rule of fault-based liability derived from the common law might hold Cox liable for copyright infringement committed on its network,” Sotomayor wrote.
Former Special Counsel Jack Smith (C) arrives to testify during a closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on December 17, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former special counsel Jack Smith, testifying Thursday before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee, said that partisan politics did not play a role in his decision to charge President Donald Trump in his two investigations.
“Some of the most powerful witnesses were witnesses who, in fact, were fellow Republicans who had voted for Donald Trump, who had campaigned for him and, who wanted him to win the election. These included state officials, people who worked on his campaign and advisors,” Smith said of his election interference probe.
In seeking to challenge the results of the 2020 election, Trump was “looking for ways to stay in power,” Smith testified.
Trump was not “was not looking for honest answers about whether there was fraud in the election. He was looking for ways to stay in power. And when people told him, things that conflicted with him staying power, he rejected them or he chose not even to contact people like that,” Smith told committee members.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases, before both cases were dropped following Trump’s reelection due to the Justice Department’s long-standing policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.
Under questioning from Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Smith discussed the witnesses his team had interviewed in his election interference probe.
“There were witnesses who I felt would be very strong witnesses, including, for example, the secretary of state in Georgia who told Donald Trump the truth, told him things that he did not want to hear and put him on notice that what he was saying was false,” Smith said. “And I believe that witnesses of that nature, witnesses who are willing to tell the truth, even if it’s going to impose a cost on them in their lives — my experience as a prosecutor over 30 years is that witnesses like that are very credible, and that jurors tend to believe witnesses like that, because they pay a cost for telling the truth.”
Smith said that he got the phone toll records for some members of Congress because his office was investigating the conspiracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
“We wanted to conduct a thorough investigation of the matters, that were assigned to me, including attempts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power. The conspiracy that we were investigating, it was relevant to get toll records, to understand the scope of that conspiracy, who they were seeking to coerce, who they were seeking to influence, who was seeking to help them,” Smith said, arguing that it was a normal piece of an investigation.
In a back-and-forth with Republican Rep. Darryl Issa, Smith said he didn’t target then-President Joe Biden’s political enemies.
“Maybe they’re not your political enemies, but they sure as hell were Joe Biden’s political enemies, weren’t they? They were Harris’ political enemies. They were the enemies of the president and you were their arm, weren’t you?” Issa asked.
“No,” Smith said. “My office didn’t spy on anyone.”
He said that the decision to bring charges against Trump was solely his decision and that he was not pressured by any Biden official.
“President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold,” Smith said. “Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned.”
In his introductory remarks, Smith also said the president illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
“After leaving office in January of ’21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago Social Club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information withheld in a ballroom and a bathroom,” Smith said.
Smith said that the facts and the law supported a prosecution, and that he made decisions not based on politics, but the facts and the law.
“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican,” he said.
“No one, no one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did,” Smith said. “To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases, would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, of which I had no intention of doing.”
He also criticized what he said was the retribution carried out by the president and his allies against agents and prosecutors who investigated the cases.
“My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted,” he said. “The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it. It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what test and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country.”
In his opening statement, Committee Chairman Jim Jordan blasted Smith for what he called a partisan investigation into President Trump and other Republicans.
“Democrats have been going after President Trump for 10 years, for a decade, and the country should never, ever forget what they did,” Jordan said.
Jamie Raskin, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said that Smith proved that Trump “engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.”
“Special counsel Smith, you pursued the facts. You followed every applicable law, ethics rule and DOJ regulation. Your decisions were reviewed by the public Integrity section. You acted based solely on the facts. The opposite of Donald Trump, who now is purporting to take over,” Raskin said.
Trump’s Thursday appearance marks Smith’s second time before the committee, after he appeared behind closed doors last month. It is customary for former special counsels to appear before Congress publicly to discuss their findings.
In his closed-door testimony, Smith defended his decision to twice bring charges against Trump — telling lawmakers his team “had proof beyond reasonable doubt in both cases” that Trump was guilty of the charges in the 2020 election interference and classified documents cases, according to a transcript of the hearing.
And Smith fervently denied that there was any political influence behind his decision — contrary to allegations of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, who requested the testimony — such as pressure from then-President Joe Biden or then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, the transcripts shows.
“No,” Smith responded continuously to those allegations, according to the transcript.
Just over an hour before his testimony on Dec. 17, the Department of Justice sent an email to Smith’s lawyers preventing him from discussing the classified documents case, according to the 255-page transcript of the deposition, released last year by the Judiciary Committee along with a video of the hearing.
This meant Smith was unable to answer most questions on that case and the deposition — intended to ask questions about the alleged weaponization of the DOJ against Trump and his allies — mainly focused on the 2020 election case instead.
His team also said Smith will comply with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s order that blocked the release of the second volume of his report dealing with the classified documents case.
Smith’s counsel said the DOJ also refused to send a lawyer to advise Smith on whether his statements were in line with their determination of what he could or could not say regarding the cases, according to the deposition. Smith did say, however, that Trump “tried to obstruct justice” in the classified documents investigation “to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”
Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, US Customs and Border Protection, Commissioner Rodney Scott, and Acting Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons testify before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, February 12, 2026 in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Rand Paul had strong words on Thursday for the heads of the federal agencies spearheading the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and across the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons, Customs and Border Protection commissioner Rodney Scott, and Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joseph Edlow were testifying in front of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
“Witness the thousands of people in the streets in Minneapolis and in Minnesota, and the millions of viewers who witnessed the recent deaths,” Paul, the committee’s chairman, said. “It’s clearly evident that the public trust has been lost. To restore trust in ICE and Border Patrol, they must admit their mistakes, be honest and forthright with their rules of engagement, and pledge to reform. I hope the leadership of ICE and Border Patrol here today will participate in a meaningful way.”
Paul and ranking member Sen. Gary Peters went frame by frame on videos of the shooting of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old Minneapolis nurse killed in an encounter with federal agents last month. Federal officials initially said that Pretti “approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun” and “attacked” officers carrying out immigration duties.
State and local officials said Pretti was lawfully carrying a gun, with a concealed carry permit, and video reviewed and verified by ABC News does not appear to show that Pretti drew his gun on the agents and instead was holding up a cell phone, not a gun, to record agents during the incident.
Another Minneapolis resident – Renee Good — was also shot and killed by federal agents in early January. Federal officials say that the agents acted in self defense after Good allegedly tried to ram them with her car, which local city officials and her family have disputed.
Paul said that it isn’t so much about the specifics of the investigation, but rather the training that CBP and ICE agents receive.
“No one in America believes shoving that woman’s head and face in the snow was de-escalation,” Paul said of video showing agents scuffling with Pretti and a woman moments before the shooting. “But your officer, you need to know they…had a verbal encounter with them. She did not place her hands on the officers. She wasn’t trying to get their weapon. It’s not great. I mean … I don’t like to see these encounters either, but is it appropriate for the officers to respond to a verbal, barrage of words or whatever? Is it proper, to physically throw a woman down or throw anyone down if the only action is verbal?”
Both Scott and Lyons agreed that it wasn’t de-escalation if the only action against the agents had been verbal.
“I understand you not wanting to make conclusions yet, but nobody believes you’re gonna because you made conclusions immediately,” Paul told the law enforcement leaders. “Not you. But people within the government made conclusions immediately that [Pretti] was a terrorist and an assassin … people aren’t believing there’s going to be an honest investigation.”
In the hours after the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti committed an “act of domestic terrorism” and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called him a “would-be assassin” and a “terrorist.”
Paul added at the hearing, “I think it’s terrible police work, but there has to ultimately be repercussions.”
Scott said that he would not jump to conclusions and asked the nation to do the same. He said he was committed to releasing the officers’ body-worn-cameras once the investigation is complete.
“There’s body-cam video, that’s all being looked at,” Scott said. “And until all that evidence is evaluated, I can’t jump to a conclusion on either direction. I would ask America to do the same thing, but I am committed to transparency, to making sure all the information we have is made public when it’s appropriate.”
Paul said that he saw “nothing, not even a hint of something that was aggressive on [Pretti’s] part.”
“I don’t think this should take months and months and years and years. There needs to be a conclusion,” Paul said. “We need to have answers here and there needs to be an announcement. These are the new policies. This is how we’re going to interact with the public, because the public needs to know to, you know, if I go to a protest and I shout something at people, could I be killed?”
Scott also did not say whether the gun was accidentally discharged by officers in the Pretti case, citing an ongoing investigation.
The Minnesota National Guard sits at the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, United States, on January 26, 2025. (Arthur Maiorella/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon’s Northern Command over the weekend stood down more than 1,500 federal troops placed on alert for potential deployment to Minneapolis, according to two U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the situation.
ABC News first reported that roughly 1,500 active duty soldiers from the 11th Airborne Division at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska had been ordered to prepare for a possible mission to the Twin Cities in Minnesota.
Additional units across the country, including some 200 Texas National Guard troops, also had been directed to make preparations.
No specific mission was ever outlined, and placing units on alert is a relatively routine step when commanders anticipate a potential presidential order, according to officials familiar with the planning. The New York Times was the first to report that units were being taken off high alert.
The prepare-to-deploy orders came as President Donald Trump, threatened to use the Insurrection Act of 1807, a rarely used statute that grants a president authority to deploy federal troops for domestic law enforcement missions under limited circumstances.
The law has been invoked most frequently during the Civil Rights era, particularly to enforce court-ordered desegregation and quell large-scale unrest.
The order to stand down comes as the Trump administration has signaled a potential de-escalation in Minneapolis following the fatal shootings of two people involving federal officers.
On Monday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that every officer in Minneapolis will start to wear body cameras.
“As funding is available, the body camera program will be expanded nationwide,” Noem said in a statement. “We will rapidly acquire and deploy body cameras to DHS law enforcement across the country.”
The 11th Airborne Division is the Pentagon’s primary ground combat force tailored for warfare in extreme cold, a niche capability the Army views as increasingly central to modern conflict.
The unit is not built with civilian law enforcement in mind, and such a deployment would’ve likely been seen as a major escalation of the federal government’s role in the Minneapolis protests.
The 11th Airborne Division plays a significant role in the U.S. military’s posture in the Pacific, regularly training alongside allied forces as part of efforts to deter China. Built for speed and flexibility, the division focuses on airborne operations that enable units to parachute into contested terrain, giving commanders an early foothold in a conflict.
Meanwhile, Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has ordered the state’s National Guard into Minneapolis to secure the Whipple Federal Building, a massive federal complex that houses a courtroom, a detention center, and offices for multiple agencies, including Homeland Security.
Guard troops have been outfitted in bright reflective vests to distinguish them from federal agents who often dress similar to the military.
