The US Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that Cox Communications cannot be held liable for piracy by its internet service subscribers of songs owned by Sony Music, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and other labels, ending their billion-dollar-plus music copyright lawsuit.

The 9-0 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision to order a new trial to determine how much the internet service provider owed the record labels for a form of liability called contributory copyright infringement.

Cox had said a retrial could have produced a verdict against the Atlanta-based ISP of as much as $1.5 billion.

Internet service providers like Cox are generally not considered liable under US law for infringement by their users if they take reasonable measures to address it.

But the labels accused Cox, the largest unit of privately owned Cox Enterprises, of failing to respond to thousands of infringement notices, cut off internet access for repeat infringers or take other piracy-deterrence steps.

Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas authored the ruling Wednesday finding that Cox was not liable for copyright infringement.

“Cox provided internet service to its subscribers, but it did not intend for that service to be used to commit copyright infringement,” Thomas wrote. “Holding Cox liable merely for failing to terminate internet service to infringing accounts would expand secondary copyright liability beyond our precedents.”

Cox spokesperson Todd Smith called the decision “a decisive victory for the broadband industry and for the American people who depend on reliable internet service,” and said it “affirms that internet service providers are not copyright police and should not be held liable for the actions of their customers.”

A jury in Alexandria, Va., in 2019 found that Cox owed the labels $1 billion for user infringement of more than 10,000 copyrights.

The jury found Cox liable both for contributory infringement and vicarious infringement, two forms of secondary copyright infringement liability.