The 31st annual Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded at a special ceremony on September 9th, announced the magazine responsible for the event, the Annals of Improbable Research.

But this week they made another announcement. "YouTube's notorious takedown algorithms are blocking the video of the 2021 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony." We have so far been unable to find a human at YouTube who can fix that. We recommend that you watch the identical recording on Vimeo.

Here's what triggered this: The ceremony includes bits of a recording (of tenor John McCormack singing "Funiculi, Funicula") made in the year 1914.

YouTube's takedown algorithm claims that the following corporations all own the copyright to that audio recording that was MADE IN THE YEAR 1914: "SME, INgrooves (on behalf of Emerald); Wise Music Group, BMG Rights Management (US), LLC, UMPG Publishing, PEDL, Kobalt Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, Sony ATV Publishing, and 1 Music Rights Societies"

Sony has released a new software update for the PlayStation 5 that will let you expand the console's internal storage and use the PS5's 3D audio effects on external speakers. CNET reports: The PS5 update will also let you view PS4 and PS5 versions of the same game separately -- particularly useful after you upgrade to a next-gen version -- plus it gives you more options for customizing the Control Center and lets you use it to write messages to other players. PlayStation Now subscribers will also get the ability to choose between 720p and 1080p streaming options, or use a streaming connection test to identify and fix connection issues. The PS4 is also getting a software update, letting you see PS5 trophies on your profile and those of other players.

An Nvidia GeForce Now server has leaked a confidential list of thousands of games, some of which have never been seen before, like the PlayStation exclusive God of War seemingly coming to Windows PC via Steam. Developer Ighor July has published the list to GitHub. The Verge reports: Here's a screenshot of what that looks like in the GeForce Now client, according to the developer. There are reasons to believe the list is legit. We know graphics giant Nvidia has access to games long before they're released -- and we know Sony in particularly has been banking on banking on PlayStation games on PC. It quietly revealed Uncharted 4 was coming to PC, after seeing a 250 percent return on its investment porting Horizon: Zero Dawn to the platform, and it was just Thursday that Sony announced it would be part of the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection -- a name that we'd never heard of before then, but already appears in Nvidia's list as well. So too do Demon's Souls and Final Fantasy XVI -- the games where Sony had to retroactively retract all mentions of PC to make them sound like PlayStation exclusives. PS5 exclusive Returnal appears as well, as does a Final Fantasy VII Remake for PC.

And there are codenames for games in here that seem original, ones that bring up zero search results. Is "Platinum" the internal name for Bethesda's Indiana Jones games? But there are also a lot of mentions that seem rather out of date or out of place, like a whole host of Facebook-exclusive Oculus Rift titles that would make little sense on Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service, or a mention of a "Titanfall 3" which clarifies that it's actually "GAMEapex_legends_-_titanfall," aka Apex Legends, the popular battle royale game. And some of them may simply be guesses, like Kingdom Hearts IV, "BioShock 2022," and so on. All of that means you should probably take any given name on the list with a grain of salt...

According to Insider, Sony is charging a $10 upgrade fee to bring cross-generational games from a PS4 to a PS5. From the report: When new game consoles launch nowadays, a variety of games on that new console are also available on the previous generation of consoles. The next major PlayStation 5 exclusive game, for instance, is also headed to the PlayStation 4: "Horizon Forbidden West" launches in early 2022, and millions of players will get it on the last generation console. [..] Unfortunately, when PlayStation 4 owners do finally find and purchase a PlayStation 5, those cross-generational games don't automatically make the leap with them. Instead, Sony intends to charge $10 apiece for that upgrade -- and that's only after fans criticized Sony for an even stranger policy.

"Thursday was to be a celebration of 'Horizon Forbidden West' and the amazing team at Guerrilla working to deliver it on February 18, 2022," PlayStation leader Jim Ryan said in an update on a Sony blog post earlier this month. "However, it's abundantly clear that the offerings we confirmed in our pre-order kickoff missed the mark." Ryan was referring to a previously announced pre-order announcement for "Horizon Forbidden West" that revealed the only way to get both the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game was to order an $80 "digital deluxe" edition -- a $20 increase over the base level $60 price of a PS4 video game.

Sony had previously announced that any PlayStation 5 games in the "launch window" would only need to be purchased on one console to own both the PS4 and PS5 versions. "Horizon Forbidden West" has been delayed repeatedly, which pushed it out of the ambiguous "launch window" Sony set for the PlayStation 5 (which launched in November 2020). When PlayStation fans cited this, Sony caved. Moreover, Ryan laid out a clear upgrade path for the future -- albeit one that's still open to scrutiny. "Moving forward, PlayStation first-party exclusive cross-gen titles (newly releasing on PS4 & PS5) -- both digital and physical -- will offer a $10 USD digital upgrade option from PS4 to PS5," Ryan said. "This will apply to the next 'God of War' and 'Gran Turismo 7,' and any other exclusive cross-gen PS4 & PS5 title published by Sony Interactive Entertainment." Microsoft's policy, on the other hand, states that if you owned a game on a previous Xbox console, you own it on the current consoles. If there's a newer version of that game for your newer console, that's the version you get when you buy and download the game.

Long-time Slashdot reader flogger shares Amazon Prime's first trailer for its upcoming Wheel of Time series. GameSpot reports: The first three episodes will arrive on Friday, November 19, with new episodes arriving every Friday afterward, leading to the Season 1 finale on December 24.

The Wheel of Time is based on the best-selling fantasy novels by Robert Jordan, which sold more than 90 million books... The original book series was made up of 15 novels published between 1990 and 2013. Jordan died in 2007 while working on the 12th book, and left behind notes intended to help someone else finish the series. Brandon Sanderson took up the role, and now serves as a consulting producer on the Amazon series...

The series is co-produced by Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television. The first three episodes of season one will premiere together on Friday, November 19, with new episodes available each Friday following. The season finale will air on December 24.
Here's how Variety summarizes the story. The power Aes Sedai organization and "a group of other adventurers head off on a journey across the world. However, one of the members of the group is the Dragon Reborn, who will save humanity or destroy it.

CD Projekt is working on a first expansion of Cyberpunk 2077, Chief Executive Adam Kicinski said after the Polish video games maker reported a first-half beat on its net profit. From a report: Cyberpunk 2077, featuring Hollywood star Keanu Reeves, was one of last year's most anticipated games, but after a bug-ridden start it was kept off Sony's (6758.T) PlayStation Store for six months, only returning in June. CD Projekt did not give an update on how many units of Cyberpunk it had sold in the first half of 2021, but company officials told a conference call that the game was the leading source of revenue in the period. Along with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Cyberpunk drove CD Projekt's revenue 29% higher in the first half of the year to 470.6 million zlotys ($124 million).

CD Projekt said its net profit was 105 million zlotys, which was 28% lower compared to last year but above the 71 million expected by analysts. The planned Cyberpunk expansion would involve a charge to gamers, similar to the ones released for The Witcher, board member Michal Nowakowski said during Wednesday's call. "When we talk about expansions then we talk about bigger things," he said, while declining to give a specific timing for its release.

South Korea is ending a law it announced in 2011 that blocked young gamers from accessing game websites after midnight. "South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, as well as the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, say that they're ending the law to respect children's rights and encourage at-home education," reports Engadget. "The country aims to abolish the law by the end of the year when it revises its Youth Protection Act." From the report: The news doesn't mean underage gamers are entirely off the hook, though. Instead, excessive gaming will be managed by the country's "choice permit" system, which lets parents and guardians arrange approved play times. Still, that sounds more permissive than China's gaming curfew, which bans players under 18 from playing between 10PM and 8AM. Additionally, they're limited to 90 minutes of game time during weekdays, and three hours on weekends and holidays.

As Kotaku reports, the shutdown law was originally meant to curb PC gaming, but it also affected consoles. Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live ended up restricting their accounts to adults. That's why Minecraft is now an R-rated game in the country. "In the changing media environment, the ability of children to decide for themselves and protect themselves has become important more than anything," Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae said, according to The Korea Times. "We will work with related ministries to systematically support media and game-use education at schools, homes, and in society so that young people can develop these abilities, and continue to make efforts to create a sound gaming environment and various leisure activities for children."

If you plan on unlocking the bootloader to root your Galaxy Z Flip 3 or Galaxy Z Fold 3 -- Samsung's two newest foldabes announced earlier this month, you should know that the Korean OEM will disable the cameras. Technically, this has only been confirmed for the Galaxy Z Fold 3, but the Galaxy Z Flip 3 likely has similar restrictions. XDA Developers reports: According to XDA Senior Members [...], the final confirmation screen during the bootloader unlock process on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 mentions that the operation will cause the camera to be disabled. Upon booting up with an unlocked bootloader, the stock camera app indeed fails to operate, and all camera-related functions cease to function, meaning that you can't use facial recognition either. Anything that uses any of the cameras will time out after a while and give errors or just remain dark, including third-party camera apps.

It is not clear why Samsung chose the way on which Sony walked in the past, but the actual problem lies in the fact that many will probably overlook the warning and unlock the bootloader without knowing about this new restriction. Re-locking the bootloader does make the camera work again, which indicates that it's more of a software-level obstacle. With root access, it could be possible to detect and modify the responsible parameters sent by the bootloader to the OS to bypass this restriction. However, according to ianmacd, Magisk in its default state isn't enough to circumvent the barrier.

Google's next midrange smartphone is the Pixel 5a, featuring a slightly bigger display than last year's Pixel 4a, a considerably larger battery and IP67 water and dust resistance. It's priced at $449, which is $100 more than the Pixel 4a, and is expected to be the last Google phone to include a charger in the box (sorry Pixel 6 fans). Ars Technica reports: Part of the reason for the price increase is that the Pixel 5a is a bigger phone, with a 6.34-inch display and 73.7 mm width compared to the Pixel 4a's 5.8-inch display and 69.4 mm width. Another big change is the addition of IP67 dust and water resistance, which means the phone should survive submersion in 3 feet of water (1 meter) for 30 minutes. As with the Pixel 5, the Pixel 5a's body is metal coated in plastic instead of the pure plastic body of the Pixel 4a. We didn't see the appeal of this construction in the Pixel 5, but the new phone is presumably stronger now.

As usual, we're getting a no-frills design that takes care of the basics. On the front, there's a slim-bezel OLED display and a hole-punch camera in the top right, while there are two cameras (main and wide-angle) and a capacitive fingerprint reader on the back. Specs include a Snapdragon 765G (that's a 7 nm chip with two Cortex A76 cores and six Cortex A55 cores), 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and the biggest battery of any Pixel: 4680 mAh. The main camera is 12.2 MP and looks like the same Sony IMX363 sensor that Google has used for the past four years. There's a 16 MP wide-angle and an 8 MP front camera. Oh yeah, the headphone jack is sticking around for at least one more year. If there's a disappointment with the Pixel 5a, it's the 60 Hz display, which is looking pretty slow in a world where 90 Hz and 120 Hz are often the norm. Another important note is that the Pixel 5a will get three years of major updates and three years of security updates. It's currently available for preorder now and starts shipping on August 26.

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from Wired, written by Lauren Goode: Samsung's newest foldables are even more impressive than the folding models that came before them. (The company first started shipping foldable phones in 2019, after years of development.) And yet, folding phones are still the 3D TVs of the smartphone world: birthed with the intention of swiveling your head toward a product at a time when the market for that product has softened. They're technically complicated. They're expensive. And their usability depends a whole lot on the way content is displayed on them, which means manufacturers could nail all the tech specs and still must wait on software makers (or entertainment companies) to create stuff to fill these space-age screens. All this does not bode well for the future of foldable phones, though some analysts are more optimistic.

Back in the early 2010's, global TV shipments started slipping, as developed markets became saturated with flat-screen TVs. And as prices for LCD TVs sank, so did profits. So TV manufacturers like Sony, LG, and Samsung began hyping the next expensive upgrade: 3D televisions. We tech journalists marched around the annual CES in 3D glasses, hoping to catch a glimpse of a 3D TV that would change our minds about this gimmicky technology. We grew mildly nauseous. We waited for more content. Five years later, 3D TV was dead. At the end of the last decade, WIRED's Brian Barrett summed up the great 3D TV pitch as "what happens when smart people run out of ideas, the last gasp before aspiration gives way to commoditization."

I know: TVs and mobile phones are different beasts. Mobile phones have fundamentally altered the way we live. Billions of handsets have been sold. But about four years ago, global smartphone sales slowed. By 2019, consumers were holding on to their phones for a few extra months before splurging on an upgrade. As smartphones became more secure and reliable, running on desktop-grade chip systems and featuring cameras good enough to decimate the digital camera market, each new iteration of a phone seemed, well, iterative. Enter foldable displays, which are either a desperate gimmick or a genuine leap forward, depending on whom you ask. Or, like 3D TVs, maybe they're both.

Foldables were also supposed to be the ultimate on-the-go device, for road warriors and jet-setters and productivity gurus who want to "stay in the flow" at all times. As I've written before, it's not exactly the best time to beta test this concept, while some of our movements are limited. The context for foldables has changed in the short time since they became commercially available. Of course, that context could always change again. Foldables may be the next frontier in phones, or in tablets, or laptops, or all of the above. They could become commonplace, assumed, as boring as a solid inflexible brick. Maybe we'll manage our decentralized bank accounts on a creaky screen as we shoot into sub-orbital space. Or maybe we'll stare into the screens, two parts fused into one, and hope that the future is something more than this. The biggest argument for foldables not being 3D TVs, as mentioned by research manager for IDC, Jitesh Ubrani, is the potential utility of foldables.

"Most people in the industry, and even many consumers, believe that ultimately there is just going to be one device you use, you know?" Ubrani says. "And this device will have the ability to function as a phone, as a PC, as a tablet. So where foldables can really drive the technology is by replacing three devices with one."

The PlayStation 5 just crossed a significant milestone. Sony has revealed that it has sold 10 million PS5 consoles as of July 18th, eight months after the system's November 12th debut. From a report: The company considered that no mean feat between the pandemic and ongoing chip shortages that reportedly held sales back. It's now Sony's fastest-selling console to date, outpacing the PS4 by nearly a month. Sales have slowed down since launch. Sony racked up 4.5 million PS5 sales in 2020, but sold 3.3 million in the first quarter of 2021 -- it took another four months to add 2.2 million to the tally. That's not surprising between supply constraints and the usual mid-year slump, but you might not see sales climb until the holidays. PlayStation chief Jim Ryan told GamesIndustry.biz in an interview that it was "too early to tell" which markets were the hottest given widespread demand, but pointed out that China was a pleasant surprise. The company sold out its PS5 launch stock "very, very quickly" despite a local market focused on mobile games and the free-to-play model.

Many websites -- including banking pages, brokerages, and gaming services -- have been affected by what looks to be a major internet outage. From a report: As website owners and companies that run services that provide the backbone of the web scramble to solve the issue, consumers have been left unable to access services like Ally Bank, Fidelity, Sony's PlayStation Network, Airbnb, and more. Several airline sites are also having issues: Delta, British Airways, and Southwest's sites are all having major issues. At the moment, it's unclear what's causing the outage, though DownDetector reports that both AWS and Akamai, a pair of content delivery networks that host much of the internet, are both experiencing issues. Akamai's status page reports that the company is currently investigating an issue with its DNS service. Cloudflare's CEO has chimed in to say that its service isn't to blame.

Tencent has announced plans to buy British video game company Sumo Group for $1.27 billion. The Verge reports: The Chinese tech giant already has an 8.75-percent stake in the developer, as Gamesindustry.biz reports, and the offer represents a 43-percent premium on Sumo's current valuation. Based in Sheffield, England, Sumo's well-regarded core studio Sumo Digital has carried out contract work for many of the biggest names in gaming. It developed Sony's PlayStation 5 launch title Sackboy: A Big Adventure and was the primary studio behind Microsoft's Crackdown 3 for Xbox consoles and PC. In 2017 Sumo released Snake Pass for multiple platforms, its first foray into original IP.

"The three founders of Sumo, who work in the business, Paul Porter, Darren Mills and I are passionate about what we do and are fully committed to continuing in our roles," says Sumo CEO Carl Cavers in a statement. "The opportunity to work with Tencent is one we just couldn't miss. It would bring another dimension to Sumo, presenting opportunities for us to truly stamp our mark on this amazing industry, in ways which have previously been out-of-reach." Cavers says Tencent has "demonstrated its commitment to backingâ Sumo's client work, as well as its own original IP, so things are unlikely to change too quickly. The buyout does, however, give Tencent yet another foothold in the international gaming industry, following prominent investments in companies like Epic, Riot, Activision, and Ubisoft. "Tencent intends to bring its expertise and resources to accelerate the growth of Sumo both in the UK and abroad, supporting Sumo in the market for top-notch creative talent, and the UK as a hub for game innovation," says Tencent's chief strategy officer James Mitchell. "We believe the proposed transaction benefits all stakeholders, delivers compelling value for Sumo shareholders, while enhancing the Sumo business for the future."

Earlier this week, Netflix announced that it is planning an expansion into video games and has hired a former EA and Facebook executive to lead the effort. Now, according to a recent datamine, the streaming giant may be forming a partnership with PlayStation to bring some of the biggest PlayStation brands to Netflix. IGN reports: Reported by VGC, dataminer Steve Moser appears to have uncovered PlayStation brand imagery and content in the Netflix app code. Moser shared the information via a tweet, including images of both the Ghost of Tsushima box art and some PS5 controllers. It's unclear exactly what this means for Netflix, but if there is a burgeoning partnership between Netflix and PlayStation, it could see Ghost of Tsushima content come to the streaming service in some form.

Moser suggests that the gaming section of Netflix currently has the codename 'Shark', and the placement of PlayStation IP within that suggests a collaborative approach. This wouldn't be the first major deal between Sony and Netflix, as the two companies agreed a deal earlier this year that means movies from Sony Pictures Entertainment will come to Netflix first after their theatrical run. [...] Given that many first-party PlayStation games are narrative-driven adventure games with a focus on cinematic stories, it makes sense to try and adopt games like Ghost of Tsushima and the last of us into movies and TV. Whilst PlayStation already has a games streaming service, PlayStation Now, it could also potentially be looking to push gaming content beyond the PlayStation console ecosystem, as Microsoft has done with Xbox Game Pass.

After yesterday's industry-wide discussion of the cost of being visible on Sony's PlayStation Store, Kotaku has heard from multiple independent developers and publishers expressing similar frustrations and fury. From a report: There were two main responses to our article yesterday highlighting one independent developer's frustrations with working with Sony to sell games on the PlayStation store. The first was a confusing number of people convinced that this was somehow part of an underground conspiracy to destroy Sony. The second was many indie game developers and publishers getting in touch to say that, yes, wow, Sony are far harder to work with and sell games through than anywhere else.

It's not possible to rationalize with the former group. We had confirmed hard figures on Sony's fees for getting any visibility on the PlayStation's in-built store, so we reported them. The conspiracy, disappointingly, ends there. However, the information about just how much worse it is for indies to work with Sony than Microsoft or Nintendo keeps piling in. "Oh yeah, so there's Nintendo who supports you," one such response begins. "[Then] Microsoft who supports you and [then] there is Sony who supports its own AAA machine and gives a fuck about everyone else."

As Bloomberg reported in April, Sony shows extraordinary caution even with the games it makes itself, with an obsessive focus on blockbuster success. According to that article, the Japanese corporation is moving away from developing smaller in-house games, so fixated are they on only the largest games. It seems this lack of interest in smaller titles extends to third-party developers attempting to sell their games on the system. "Sony does not understand what indie means," an independent publisher tells me under the condition of anonymity, via Twitter DMs. "Not at all. For them indie is something in the lower million budgets."

"Every Sony PlayStation 3 ID out there was compromised, provoking bans of legit players on the network," Threatpost is reporting, calling it "just the latest in a shocking spike in attacks on unsuspecting gamers."

tlhIngan (Slashdot user #30,335) shares Threatpost's report: Sony reportedly left a folder with every PS3 console ID online unsecured, and it was discovered and reported by a Spanish YouTuber with the handle "The WizWiki" in mid-April... Now, several weeks later, players on PlayStation Network message boards are complaining that they can't sign on and are receiving the error message 8071006. After enabling two-factor authentication (2FA), one player was able to sign back in without issue, according to posts on the PS3 subreddit, which includes a link to instructions on how to opt into 2FA on the PS3.

It appears threat actors have started using the stolen PS3 console IDs for malicious purposes, causing the legitimate players to get banned... Sony has not responded to Threatpost's request for comment or confirmed a connection between the PS3 ID breach and player reports of being locked out of the platform...

Sony is hardly the only gaming company leaking data like a sieve. A report from January found a half a million credentials stolen from the Top 25 gaming companies on caches of breached data for sale in criminal marketplaces. In June, the "Battle of the Galaxy" mobile game leaked 6 million gamer profiles, and attackers are working out how to use gaming platforms like Steam to host or deliver malware.

Sony Music has obtained an injunction that requires the freely available DNS-resolver Quad9 to block a popular pirate site. The order, issued by the District Court in Hamburg, Germany, is the first of its kind. The Quad9 foundation has already announced that it will protest the judgment, which could have far-reaching consequences. TorrentFreak reports: The Hamburg court found that the DNS service is not eligible for the liability protections that other third-party intermediaries such as ISPs and domain registrars typically enjoy. And if Quad9 fails to comply with the injunction, it will have to pay a fine of 250,000 euros per 'infringing' DNS query plus potentially two years in prison. One of the arguments that Sony brought up in court was that Quad9 already blocks various problematic sites voluntarily. In fact, the DNS-resolver promotes threat blocking as a feature. "Quad9 blocks against known malicious domains, preventing your computers and IoT devices from connecting to malware or phishing sites," the company's website reads.

Bill Woodcock, chairman of the Quad9 foundation, doesn't believe that the company's malware and phishing filters, which help to protect users, are on par with blocking a pirate site. He informed the German news site Heise that Quad9 will appeal to the injunction. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Quad9's General Manager, John Todd, says that the company is still reviewing the order, which it received last Friday. The non-profit foundation doesn't believe its resources should be used to benefit for-profit companies such as Sony.

Sony will allow "Cyberpunk 2077" to be sold on its online PlayStation store starting June 21, the game's creators at CD Projekt Red said today. From a report: Sales of the buggy would-be blockbuster have been hit hard since Sony delisted the game shortly after its launch. Many fans had high hopes that the game would meet the level of quality of CDPR's last adventure, "The Witcher 3." A reappearance may signal the game is in a viable condition to play.

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is planning to debut its first augmented reality headset in the second quarter of 2022. MacRumors reports: The research report focuses on prospects for key Apple supplier Genius Electronic Optical, and notes that the company will benefit from a number of upcoming VR and AR products from the likes of Facebook, Sony, and Apple: "We predict that Apple will launch AR HMD [head-mounted display] devices in 2Q22. The device will provide a video see-through AR experience, so the lens is also needed, and Genius is also a key supplier." Apple has been rumored to be working on a pair of AR-related headsets, led by an initial "mixed-reality" device that has variously been rumored to be launching in 2021 or 2022. A sleeker pair of augmented reality glasses is rumored to follow, perhaps around 2025. As recently as January, Kuo was predicting that Apple's initial AR headset would debut sometime in 2021, but by March he had pushed his prediction back to "mid-2022," more in line with today's report.

Some of the uncertainty about timing may be related to a potentially lengthy gap between announcement and launch for the AR headset. As a new platform for Apple, the company may want to announce it a number of months ahead of any product launch to give developers time to prepare. Reports have, however, indicated that Apple's first AR headset will be a pricey, high-end device largely targeted at developers rather than the broader public.

The EFF's senior staff attorney and their legal intern are warning that a bad copyright decision by a district court judge could lead many Americans to lose their internet access.

"In going after ISPs for the actions of just a few of their users, Sony Music, other major record labels, and music publishing companies have found a way to cut people off of the internet based on mere accusations of copyright infringement." When these music companies sued Cox Communications, an ISP, the court got the law wrong. It effectively decided that the only way for an ISP to avoid being liable for infringement by its users is to terminate a household or business's account after a small number of accusations — perhaps only two. The court also allowed a damages formula that can lead to nearly unlimited damages, with no relationship to any actual harm suffered.

If not overturned, this decision will lead to an untold number of people losing vital internet access as ISPs start to cut off more and more customers to avoid massive damages...

The district court agreed with Sony that Cox is responsible when its subscribers — home and business internet users — infringe the copyright in music recordings by sharing them on peer-to-peer networks. It effectively found that Cox didn't terminate accounts of supposedly infringing subscribers aggressively enough. An earlier lawsuit found that Cox wasn't protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) safe harbor provisions that protect certain internet intermediaries, including ISPs, if they comply with the DMCA's requirements. One of those requirements is implementing a policy of terminating "subscribers and account holders... who are repeat infringers" in "appropriate circumstances." The court ruled in that earlier case that Cox didn't terminate enough customers who had been accused of infringement by the music companies.

In this case, the same court found that Cox was on the hook for the copyright infringement of its customers and upheld the jury verdict of $1 billion in damages — by far the largest amount ever awarded in a copyright case.

The District Court got the law wrong... An ISP can be contributorily liable if it knew that a customer infringed on someone else's copyright but didn't take "simple measures" available to it to stop further infringement. Judge O'Grady's jury instructions wrongly implied that because Cox didn't terminate infringing users' accounts, it failed to take "simple measures." But the law doesn't require ISPs to terminate accounts to avoid liability. The district court improperly imported a termination requirement from the DMCA's safe harbor provision (which was already knocked out earlier in the case). In fact, the steps Cox took short of termination actually stopped most copyright infringement — a fact the district court simply ignored.

The district court also got it wrong on vicarious liability... [T]he court decided that because Cox could terminate accounts accused of copyright infringement, it had the ability to supervise those accounts. But that's not how other courts have ruled. For example, the Ninth Circuit decided in 2019 that Zillow was not responsible when some of its users uploaded copyrighted photos to real estate listings, even though Zillow could have terminated those users' accounts. In reality, ISPs don't supervise the Internet activity of their users. That would require a level of surveillance and control that users won't tolerate, and that EFF fights against every day.

The consequence of getting the law wrong on secondary liability here, combined with the $1 billion damage award, is that ISPs will terminate accounts more frequently to avoid massive damages, and cut many more people off from the internet than is necessary to actually address copyright infringement...
They also argue that the termination of accounts is "overly harsh in the case of most copyright infringers" — especially in a country where millions have only one choice for broadband internet access. "Being effectively cut off from society when an ISP terminates your account is excessive, given the actual costs of non-commercial copyright infringement to large corporations like Sony Music." It's clear that Judge O'Grady misunderstood the impact of losing Internet access. In a hearing on Cox's earlier infringement case in 2015, he called concerns about losing access "completely hysterical," and compared them to "my son complaining when I took his electronics away when he watched YouTube videos instead of doing homework."