Appellate Piracy Ruling Ends Adjudicated Repeat Infringers Fight, Stanford CIS Expert Says

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' affirming summary judgment on Cox Communications ineligible for Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbor protection (see 1802010026) came as the record was clear Cox took every effort to not reasonably implement its own repeat infringer policy, Stanford Law Center for Internet and Society affiliate scholar Annemarie Bridy blogged Sunday: The 4th Circuit makes clear Cox's failure was in implementation, not design, of the 13-point copyright warning system. The decision "lays to rest" any notion DMCA means adjudicated repeat infringers when it refers to repeats, Bridy said. Some amici worried the 4th Circuit would end up limiting ISP latitude in designing repeat infringer policies, but it didn't criticize the design of Cox's "relatively forgiving system," she said.