The Wireless ISP Association petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for review of the FCC’s Nov. 20 digital discrimination order on grounds that it’s contrary to law, an abuse of discretion and violates the Administrative Procedure Act, said the petition Wednesday (docket 24-1047). It becomes the 15th such petition consolidated in the 8th Circuit once it’s transferred there under the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation's Feb. 9 order (see 2402120077). The order “undermines” congressional intent “by diverting limited human resources and investment from deployment to compliance with burdensome and overbroad regulations,” said the petition. It imposes a novel disparate-impact test that allows the FCC “to micromanage a host of legitimate business practices, including network buildout decisions, pricing, promotions, advertising, contract renewal, and customer service,” it said. If the order is allowed to stand, the FCC could enforce it “with its full range of tools, including civil penalties,” it said. The order “will deter innovation and investment in broadband,” including among WISPA’s small and rural members who may lack adequate resources to “absorb” the order’s compliance and potential enforcement costs, it said.
Lisa Bodenburg’s opposition to Apple’s motion to stay discovery pending the resolution of Apple’s motion to dismiss her first amended fraud complaint (see 2402220044) “misstates the legal standard” for a motion to stay and makes “unfounded accusations” against the company, said Apple’s reply Tuesday (docket 3:23-cv-04409) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco in support of the stay. The plaintiff alleges that Apple delivers iCloud+ subscribers 5 GB less monthly cloud-storage capacity than they buy. Apple’s motion to stay discovery was timely filed and there’s no concern with that motion being heard alongside the motion to dismiss at the March 12 motion hearing, said the defendant’s reply. The request for a discovery stay would become moot if the court grants Apple’s motion to dismiss at the hearing, it said. A discovery stay otherwise “is likely to avoid unnecessary expense for the parties” and burden to the court before a decision on the motion to dismiss is issued, it said. Bodenburg also wrongly asserts that Apple misstated the legal standard for the motion to stay, it said. District courts routinely apply “a straightforward two-part test in determining whether to exercise their discretion to stay discovery,” it said. They consider whether a pending motion is potentially dispositive of the action and whether any discovery is necessary to decide the motion. Courts often take a “preliminary peek” at the pending motion to assess its potential merit before deciding whether to stay discovery, it said. Despite Bodenburg’s attempts to “complicate this analysis,” Apple’s pending motion to dismiss “clearly satisfies this two-part test,” it said. The motion to dismiss requires no discovery, and it’s “more than possible that it will be dispositive: it should end the case,” it said. Bodenburg also is incorrect that the requested discovery stay “will create havoc given the case schedule or that a discovery stay is unnecessary because of the scope of discovery sought to date,” said the reply. The plaintiff has made clear that she intends to seek “wide-ranging discovery,” including from third parties, “and posits that Apple can challenge such requests through motion practice” while the motion to dismiss is pending, it said. But Bodenburg’s position “is contrary to the fundamental purpose of a discovery stay,” the reply said. A stay is designed to avoid burdening the court with discovery-related motions “when a dispositive motion requiring no discovery is pending and forcing the parties to incur additional costs,” it said.
OpenAI’s AI products use “stolen" personally identifiable information (PII) from “hundreds of millions of internet users,” including children, without their "informed consent or knowledge," alleged a class action Tuesday (docket 3:24-cv-01190) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) is resisting calls by five individual TikTok users and TikTok itself to personally depose him during the discovery phase of the two consolidated cases that challenge the constitutionality of the state's TikTok ban, said Knudsen’s response Thursday (docket 9:23-cv-00061) in U.S. District Court for Montana in Missoula.
Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have engaged in a “years-long campaign” to block FuboTV’s “sports-first” streaming business, resulting in “significant harm” to Fubo and consumers, said Fubo Tuesday of the antitrust complaint it filed in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan. The complaint (docket 1:24-mc-00070), which remained under seal Wednesday, alleges that the forthcoming launch of the companies’ sports-streaming joint venture “steals Fubo’s playbook and is the latest example of this campaign,” it said. “Each of these companies has consistently engaged in anticompetitive practices that aim to monopolize the market, stifle any form of competition, create higher pricing for subscribers and cheat consumers from deserved choice,” said Fubo CEO David Gandler in a statement. “By joining together to exclusively reserve the rights to distribute a specialized live sports package, we believe these corporations are erecting insurmountable barriers that will effectively block any new competitors from entering the market.” The strategy ensures that consumers desiring a dedicated sports channel lineup “are left with no alternative but to subscribe” to the joint venture, it said. Disney, Fox and WBD didn’t comment.
Vaneet Sharma and his company, Astro Vastu Solutions, are trafficking in an “illicit” internet streaming television service called Sharma IPTV using Dish Network and Sling TV channels that are retransmitted without authorization to users that purchase the Sharma service, alleged Dish and Sling in a Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint Friday (docket 3:24-cv-00961) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. Identifiers that are unique to Dish’s internet transmissions of its channels “were detected when conducting a technical analysis of the corresponding channels” on the Sharma service, said the complaint. The analysis confirmed that channels retransmitted on the service originated from Dish and Sling, it said. Sling’s logo was also "observed on certain channels" retransmitted on the service, “further proof” that the Dish and Sling channels were used to “seed” the service with unauthorized content, it said. Sharma was notified that he must cease providing the service because it infringes Dish’s and Sling’s rights, but he “failed to comply,” said the complaint. Sharma admitted that he won’t stop providing the service because the profits that he receives from the service “are too good to stop,” it said. He told Dish and Sling that if they prosecute a DMCA case against him, he'll simply blame his ex-wife for running the Sharma service under his name, said the complaint.
Both sides during oral argument Friday at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Appeals Court in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ (D) appeal to reverse the injunction that bars her from enforcing New York’s Hateful Conduct Law (see 2310160001) gave less than definitive answers when asked by the three-judge panel whether a ruling in James’ appeal should await the U.S. Supreme Court's resolution of NetChoice’s First Amendment challenges to the Florida and Texas social media content-moderation laws (see 2311300012).
NetChoice hailed Monday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley for Southern Ohio in Columbus granting NetChoice’s motion for a preliminary injunction that on constitutional grounds blocks Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) from enforcing the state’s Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act. The judge previously granted NetChoice a temporary restraining order against the statute a week before it was to take effect Jan. 15 (see 2401090062).
Telecom services agent BB Telco (BBT) is suing one of its former sub-agents for “blatantly using” company resources to poach customers on behalf of a communication vendor while “simultaneously acting as a BBT representative,” said its fraud complaint Thursday (docket 7:24-cv-00042) in U.S. District Court for Southern Texas in McAllen.
Data promised to cryptocurrency platform Nemo under an agreement spanning 2013-2020 “was not delivered by XYZ as agreed,” alleged a breach of contract complaint Wednesday (docket 2:24-cv-00737) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark. The suit names as defendants XYZ Financial Markets, QTrade Capital Partners, Barry Friedman, Llewellyn Jones, Derrick Kaiser, Jeffrey Sassoon and John and Jane Does 1-10. It also names ABC Corps. 1-10 as “fictitious and unknown” defendants.