SCOTUS AM

December 1, 2025 — SCOTUS AM

Dec 1, 2025

**Video ID:** TMR-V-79671a04

Cox Communications was hit with a billion-dollar copyright judgment for not terminating accounts of subscribers who pirated music — and the case raises questions that could reshape how much liability internet service providers bear for what their customers do.

Cox is an internet service provider. Sony and other major record labels sued Cox under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, arguing that Cox was liable as a contributory copyright infringer because it failed to implement an adequate repeat-infringer termination policy. The lower courts found Cox liable and entered a judgment over a billion dollars — one of the largest copyright judgments in history. Bryan explained the mechanics: under the DMCA's safe harbor provisions, ISPs can avoid liability if they adopt and reasonably implement a policy of terminating repeat infringers. Cox's policy, the labels argued, was a sham — it looked good on paper but wasn't actually enforced. Cox had identified over 57,000 customers as infringers but kept them as subscribers. Bryan noted the case has massive implications: if ISPs are liable for their subscribers' piracy, that liability could extend to hotels, universities, and any entity that provides internet access. And enforcing termination at scale raises its own issues — it effectively makes the ISP a private copyright police force, with real privacy implications for everyone on the network.

Constitutional question: The First Amendment backdrop: ISP termination policies affect subscribers' access to the internet — a medium courts have treated as having significant First Amendment value — and a policy that requires ISPs to terminate accounts based on unverified infringement claims raises due process and First Amendment concerns about cutting off access without adjudication.

Urias-Orellana v. Bondi 24-777 · 24-777

After Chevron deference was overruled in Loper Bright, the question became what happens to all the immigration cases where courts had deferred to the Board of Immigration Appeals — and this case tests whether courts will now treat immigration fact-finding differently.

Bryan introduced the Urias-Orellana case through the story of Douglas, a man from El Salvador whose asylum claim had been denied by the BIA. The facts of Douglas's case — the specific incidents of persecution — were not in dispute. The BIA agreed the things happened. But the BIA ruled that the incidents didn't legally constitute "persecution" under the immigration statute. Bryan used Douglas's story to illustrate the fact/law distinction that's at the heart of this case: when the BIA takes uncontested facts and applies a legal standard to them, is that a factual determination (which courts must defer to) or a legal determination (which courts review de novo)? After Loper Bright overruled Chevron, the BIA can no longer claim deference just because it's the agency interpreting the statute. But the BIA can still claim deference for factual findings. The case asks courts to draw this line: did the BIA make a factual determination about what happened (deferential) or a legal conclusion about whether those facts meet the statutory standard (not deferential)?

Constitutional question: Article III's "judicial Power" and the limits on delegation: Loper Bright held that courts must exercise their own independent judgment on questions of law, including statutory interpretation. The question here is whether that principle reaches into immigration adjudication — a system built on Article I courts and decades of Chevron deference — and what independent judicial review actually means in that context.

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