U.S. Magistrate Judge Taryn Merkl granted plaintiff Strike 3 Holdings’ motion for discovery, permitting it to serve a subpoena on Verizon Fios for the limited purpose of obtaining the name and address of defendant “John Doe” in a copyright infringement lawsuit, said a Thursday order (docket 1:23-cv-01997) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Brooklyn.

The court should reject the plaintiff’s motion to remand (docket 2:23-cv-00870) a data privacy class action against Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to Los Angeles County Superior Court, said the healthcare facility’s opposition motion filed Friday in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles.

The Association of American Publishers hailed Friday’s opinion and order granting four book publishers summary judgment in their lawsuit to thwart the Internet Archive from scanning print copies of physical books and lending the digital copies to users of IA’s website without the publishers’ permission. IA and other groups criticized the ruling.

Three advocacy groups urged the 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court to affirm the lower court’s denial of Verizon’s motion to compel the disputes of 27 California consumers to arbitration, in amicus briefs Friday. The 27 plaintiff-appellees argue the arbitration process that Verizon is attempting to foist upon consumers is an inferior and unfair forum that violates claimants’ rights under federal and state law (see 2303190001).

STC Two and Global Signal's February breach of contract complaint (see 2302280015) should be dismissed, said defendant Thomas Branham Friday in a response and counterclaim (docket 2:23-cv-00764) in U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio in Columbus. STC sued the landowner, who allegedly padlocked the entrance to a cellsite in violation of a public contracting services site agreement dating to 1998.

Rochester, New York, “fails to rebut the points raised” in Extenet’s motion in limine to preclude expert testimony from Louie Tobias, the city’s director-telecommunications and special projects, said Extenet’s reply Friday (docket 6:20-cv-07129) to the city’s opposition (see 2303200004) in U.S. District Court for Western New York. A consolidated bench trial is scheduled to begin June 1 on challenges to Rochester’s wireless deployment fees brought by Extenet, Crown Castle and Verizon, saying the fees significantly exceed a reasonable approximation of the city’s actual costs of maintaining the rights-of-way (ROW) used or occupied by telecom service providers.

Santa Fe’s March 3 response brief objected to a cost-based test for the prohibition standard under Section 253 of the Telecommunications Act, claiming the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “had no authority to adopt such a test,” said NMSurf’s reply brief Friday (docket 22-2131). The wireless ISP is appealing the district court’s upholding of Santa Fe’s 2% revenue-based franchise fee on grounds that the fee isn’t based on the city’s cost of operating the public rights of way (ROW) for service providers and is preempted by the TCA (see 2303060001).

It’s disappointing the FTC failed to block Meta’s acquisition of Within, but the ruling against the agency could help the FTC bring other competition cases involving digital markets, FTC Chair Lina Khan said Monday.

Plaintiff Gregory Roland’s putative class action alleging Chive Media Group violated the Video Privacy Protection Act by knowingly sharing his viewing data with Meta (see 2301230018) asserts “a novel theory of relief unseen and untested” in the Northern District of Illinois, said Chive’s memorandum of law Thursday (docket 1:23-cv-00337) in support of its motion to transfer Roland’s case to the U.S. District Court for Western Texas in Austin.

Defendant Samsung and the plaintiffs in the 16 Samsung data breach class actions propose a May 22 deadline for the filing of a consolidated amended complaint, said their joint agenda and status report (docket 1:23-md-03055) on the multidistrict litigation, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Camden.