If you look at the whole scenario, this will mean that Cox won't pass $1 billion dollars of punitive fines off to their customers, because, after all, the customers generate the money.

In reality, this would have made their innocent customers pay for the crimes of their guilty customers and made both Sony, and in the long run, Cox richer, because once paying an extra $5/month becomes normalized, then there's no way they're going to go back down in price just because the fine is paid off, any more than the government will ever stop charging tolls on a toll bridge that was paid for by tolls no matter how many times the cost of the toll bridge is paid off.