WASHINGTON, August 18, 2025 – A federal appeals court has ruled that internet providers that only transmit traffic cannot be ordered to hand over customer identities under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said Friday that the DMCA authorizes subpoenas only against providers that host or link to infringing content, not those that merely transmit traffic between users.
The ruling in Capstone Studios Corp. v. Cox Communications brings the Ninth Circuit into alignment with the D.C. and Eighth Circuits, which have also restricted the use of DMCA subpoenas against so-called “conduit” ISPs.
The case stemmed from efforts by Capstone Studios to unmask 29 Cox subscribers whose IP addresses appeared to be sharing pirated copies of Capstone’s movie, Fall, via a peer-to-peer filesharing protocol called BitTorrent.
A Hawaii district judge quashed the subpoena, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed, reasoning that conduit providers cannot receive valid takedown notices under the DMCA because they have nothing to remove or disable.
“Because Cox’s role in the alleged infringement was limited to that of a [section] 512(a) internet service provider, Capstone’s subpoena was invalid and the district court did not abuse its discretion when it quashed the subpoena,” Circuit Judge Morgan Christen wrote for the panel. It was the first time the Ninth Circuit had addressed the issue.
The DMCA, passed in 1998, created a “safe-harbor” system shielding ISPs, web platforms, and cloud hosts from copyright liability if they comply with rules such as removing infringing material when notified. At issue here was a provision that established an expedited subpoena process through which a copyright holder can obtain the identities of online infringers.
The Ninth Circuit decision explained that the DMCA’s subpoena process depends on a valid takedown notice, but conduit providers can’t remove content; therefore, they can’t receive such a notice, and no subpoena can be issued.
Rights holders, the panel wrote, may still pursue alleged infringers through traditional lawsuits, but not through the DMCA’s expedited subpoena process.
Separately, Cox faces a different copyright battle at the Supreme Court. On June 30, justices agreed to review a Fourth Circuit decision that threw out a $1 billion penalty imposed by a Virginia jury but left Cox partly liable for subscriber piracy. The company argues it should not be liable at all.