There was a mixed ruling at the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit as the appeals court affirmed a jury's finding that Cox was guilty of willful contributory infringement but reversed a verdict on vicarious infringement "because Cox did not profit from its subscribers' acts of infringement."

That ruling vacated a $1 billion damages award and ordered a new damages trial. Cox and Sony are both seeking a Supreme Court review. Cox wants to overturn the finding of willful contributory infringement, while Sony wants to reinstate the $1 billion verdict.

Cox has said that letting the piracy ruling stand "would force ISPs to terminate Internet service to households or businesses based on unproven allegations of infringing activity, and put them in a position of having to police their networks." Cox said that ISPs "have no way of verifying whether a bot-generated notice is accurate" and that even if the notices are accurate, terminating an account would punish every user in a household where only one person may have illegally downloaded copyrighted files.

Record labels urged the court to reinstate the vicarious infringement verdict. "As the District Court explained, the jury had ample evidence that Cox profited from its subscribers' infringement, including evidence 'that when deciding whether to terminate a subscriber for repeat infringement, Cox considered the subscriber's monthly payments,' and 'Cox repeatedly declined to terminate infringing subscribers' Internet service in order to continue collecting their monthly fees,'" the record labels' petition said.

So, current precedent is that the ISPs do have to terminate, but there’s no penalty if they don’t. Is November recent enough that the ruling has actually had any impact? Did the Supreme Coury decide to take up the case or not yet? How much does it means that the ISPs “have to” terminate users, but there doesn’t seem to be a penalty if they don’t? Is the fact that there was no ruling until recently, confirmation that they were doing it voluntarily for their own reasons before November? Or were they doing it “voluntarily” because they didn’t want to defend lawsuits like this, except Cox which was refusing to do it apparently? I have no sure idea of the answer to any of those questions. That’s why I said “I think.” But, unlike some people on the internet, I don’t just make up some bullshit and then decide that’s what I “think” and go spouting off about it. I’m just relaying my best guess, reasons for it, and being honest about the fact that it’s a guess.