Rebecca Day

Plaintiffs fail to “meet their burden” of establishing that applying California law would thwart any fundamental policy of either New York or Minnesota, said Google Wednesday in a reply (docket 4:22-cv-05652) in support of its motion to dismiss a privacy lawsuit related to YouTube and Google Play video rental policies (see 2303300063).

The government “should not be able to mask its censorship behind the guise of private action,” said the Alliance Defending Freedom Tuesday in an amicus brief (docket 3:22-cv-01213) filed in support of Republican attorneys general in a First Amendment case against Biden administration officials in U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana in Monroe.

Adult film producer Strike 3 Holdings filed 98 copyright infringement lawsuits, including over a dozen in U.S. District Court for Southern New York, from Friday to Monday, suing defendants identified only by the name John Doe and their IP addresses. Strike 3 says its paid subscriber base is one of highest of adult content sites globally, and its motion pictures are “among the most pirated content in the world.” A Friday complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota alleges John Doe, with IP address 24.118.118.215, is stealing its works “on a grand scale.” Doe uses the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol to commit “rampant and wholesale copyright infringement” by downloading the company’s movies and distributing them to others, the complaint (docket 0:23-cv-01014) said. Doe has recorded 29 infringing movies “over an extended period of time.” A John Doe at IP 74.72.25.42 was sued in New York Monday for allegedly pirating 92 titles, said a complaint (docket 1:23-cv-03189). Though the defendant Does “attempted to hide" their theft by downloading content anonymously, their ISPs, Comcast and Spectrum, “can identify Defendant through his or her IP address," said the complaints. Strike 3 “intentionally omitted the title of the work from this public filing due to the adult nature of its content,” but it can provide the works’ titles “to the Court or any party upon request,” it said in the complaints. Strike 3 used IP address online geolocation fraud detection tools Maxmind GeoIP, used by federal and state law enforcement, to determine that John Does' IP addresses traced to a physical address in a particular district, it said. Maxmind’s accuracy is 99.8% accurate on a country level, 90% accurate on a state level in the U.S. and 86% accurate to cities within the United States, the complaint said. BitTorrent enables users to interact directly with each other to distribute a large file without taxing any individual source computer or network, said the complaint. That enables Strike 3’s motion pictures, many filmed in high resolution, to be transferred quickly and efficiently, the complaint said. Strike 3 created an infringement detection system, VXN Scan, that establishes direct TCP/IP connections with defendants’ IP addresses and can identify portions of pirated videos, the complaint said. The system doesn’t upload content to a BitTorrent user but captures transactions from infringers sharing specific pieces of digital media files that have been determined to be at least “substantially similar” to a Strike 3 copyrighted work, it said.

The risk factors section in Arqit’s 2021 registration statement with the SEC failed to discuss the risks of adoption of the company’s quantum encryption-as-a-service technology, alleges a Friday fraud class action (docket 1:23-cv-02806) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Brooklyn.

The 29 Texas cities suing Disney, Hulu and Netflix for franchise fees “cannot and do not explain away” similar franchise fee lawsuits that were rejected in other jurisdictions, said Netflix’s reply in support of its motion to dismiss Wednesday in the 14th District Court of Dallas County (docket DC-22-09128).

Sixteen U.S. school districts joined the mounting wave of lawsuits against social media platforms Wednesday, as budget-strapped schools seek to hold tech companies responsible for rising costs associated with surging student mental health issues. San Diego-based Frantz Law filed 15 cases for school districts in California, Idaho, Oklahoma, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Utah, charging Facebook and Instagram parent Meta, Google, Snapchat and TikTok with violations of public nuisance laws, negligence and racketeering. A similar complaint was filed in Kentucky.

Chargebacks911 unfairly thwarted consumers trying to dispute credit card charges, violating the FTC Act and the Florida Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act, alleges a lawsuit (docket 8:23-cv-00796) filed by the FTC and Florida Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Tampa.

Petitioner Cowin Technology filed a notice of removal (1:23-cv-03054) from New York State Supreme Court to the U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan that seeks to overturn a December arbitration ruling over a seller dispute with Amazon. Howard Reiss, an arbitrator at the American Arbitration Association (AAA), on Dec. 15 denied the Hong Kong-based company’s claims for over $1 million it alleges it’s owed by Amazon, the Wednesday petition said. Amazon withheld payment for violations of its product reviews policy, and Reiss denied all of Cowin’s claims.

Disney, Hulu and Netflix provide video service and therefore owe franchise fees, said Dallas and 28 other Texas cities Monday in their memorandum in opposition to defendants’ motions to dismiss (docket DC-22-09128) the case in the 14th District Court of Dallas County.

Plaintiffs “failed to establish a single adequate, common question of fact or law applicable to each member of either putative class,” said defendants in a Tuesday response (docket 22-cv-01213) to plaintiffs’ motion for class certification and for leave to file their third amended complaint in Missouri v. Biden. The court should deny both motions, they said.