Federal officials “engaged in a far-reaching unconstitutional censorship campaign orchestrated to circumvent the First Amendment” by pressuring social media platforms to remove content that the federal government finds “objectionable,” said the right-leaning internet show Louder With Crowder in a U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief Wednesday in Murthy v. Missouri (docket 23-411) in support of the injunction that bars the officials from coercing the platforms to moderate their content.
The FCC seeks the dismissal of the petition for review of Maurine and Matthew Molak to vacate the FCC’s Oct. 25 declaratory ruling authorizing funding for Wi-Fi service and equipment on school buses under the commission’s E-rate program (see 2312200040), according to the commission’s motion Tuesday (docket 23-60641) at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin for Northern Illinois in Chicago adopted the parties’ suggested fact discovery cutoff date of Nov. 13, 2025, in the case brought by seven AT&T and Verizon customers seeking to vacate T-Mobile’s 2020 Sprint buy on anticompetitive grounds (see 2311030011). The date “seems reasonable, given the fairly complicated and extensive scope of discovery in this case,” the judge told a telephone status conference Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-03189). Durkin also agrees with the parties to hold a status conference every 60 days, he said, with the next conference scheduled for April 5 at 9:15 a.m. CDT. He also ordered the parties to file a joint status report a week in advance of each status conference, though T-Mobile is concerned that raising any disputes in the status reports will discourage resolving those disputes without court intervention. The biggest, and only, disagreement between the parties is whether merits and class expert discovery "should be separated or proceed on the same track,” said the judge. “This case is already going slowly in my mind,” he said. “I believe there should be only one expert discovery period,” he said. “I think bifurcation will cause undue delay. It’s going to lead to some inefficiencies and, in my experience, endless disputes about whether certain expert discovery is class versus merits.” The parties currently propose that expert discovery not begin until December 2025, and “that’s almost two years from now,” said Durkin. He asked the parties to submit a joint expert discovery schedule by Friday.
Grant Herrmann, the law firm representing authors Nicholas Basbanes and Nicholas Gage in their Jan. 5 copyright infringement lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, is being sidelined by counsel for the other 29 authors and the Authors Guild, it wrote U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein for Southern New York in Manhattan in a letter Monday (docket 1:23-cv-08292).
Ganiyu Jaiyeola, the former Apple metallurgist whose appeal seeks injunctive relief to block Apple, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon from advertising the iPhone 15 Pro as a titanium device (see 2401080002), “is a pro se serial litigant who has been sanctioned in multiple jurisdictions across the country for repeatedly filing baseless petitions,” said AT&T’s answering brief Monday (docket 23-4027) in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. This appeal “is similarly meritless and abusive,” it said.
U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni for Southern New York in Manhattan granted Warner Bros. Discovery's motion to dismiss a class action brought by two WBD shareholders alleging that false and misleading statements were in the offering materials that preceded the transaction from which WBD emerged (see 2302160002), said her signed opinion and order Monday (docket 1:22-cv-08171). She dismissed the case with prejudice.
2K Games and Take-Two Interactive Software seek dismissal of minor J.A.’s fraud complaint for its “novel argument” that the companies have refused to refund gamers, including children, for their unused in-game virtual currency (see 2311200063), said their motion Friday (docket 3:23-cv-05961) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.
The censorship conduct of officials from the White House and four federal agencies “fundamentally transforms online discourse and renders entire viewpoints on great social and political questions virtually unspeakable on social media,” said Friday’s response brief (23-411) at the U.S. Supreme Court in Murthy v. Missouri in support of the injunction that bars those officials from coercing the social media platforms to moderate their content.
“Nation-state support” permits dangerous actors to mount cyberattacks of “unprecedented scale,” and so it was with the Russian government’s 2020 Sunburst cyberattack against SolarWinds, said 21 former federal cybersecurity officials in an amicus brief Friday (docket 1:23-cv-09518) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan.
Yout’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act appeal against the Recording Industry Association of America “involves a number of novel questions arising out of the three distinct provisions” contained in the statute’s Section 1201, said Yout’s counsel, Evan Fray-Witzer of Ciampa Fray-Witzer, during 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals oral argument Monday (docket 22-2760).