more narrowly, the doctrine of contributory liability stands ready to provide adequate protection to copyrighted works.
Most of the facts found dispositive by the district court—e.g., Cablevision's "continuing relationship" with its RS-DVR customers, its control over recordable content, and the "instrumental[ity]" of copying to the RS DVR system, Cablevision I, 478 F. Supp. 2d at 618–20—seem to us more relevant to the question of contributory liability. In Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., the lack of an "ongoing relationship" between Sony and its VCR customers supported the Court's conclusion that it should not impose contributory liability on Sony for any infringing copying done by Sony VCR owners. 464 U.S. 417, 437–38 (1984). The Sony Court did deem it "just" to impose liability on a party in a "position to control" the infringing uses of another, but as a contributory, not direct, infringer. Id. at 437. And asking whether copying copyrighted material is only "incidental" to a given technology is akin to asking whether that technology has "commercially significant noninfringing uses," another inquiry the Sony Court found relevant to whether imposing contributory liability was just. Id. at 442.
The Supreme Court's desire to maintain a meaningful distinction between direct and contributory copyright infringement is consistent with congressional intent. The Patent Act, unlike the Copyright Act, expressly provides that someone
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