Roku executives are optimistic about smart TV usage increases but investors were less pleased with forecasts, sending the stock closing down 17.7 percent at $42.05 Thursday. Wednesday after regular U.S. markets closed, the company forecast Q1 sales of $120 million to $130 million, reportedly less than some analysts expected. Nonetheless, with one in five smart TVs sold in the U.S. last year having Roku operating systems built in, the company is “increasingly tapping into” the $70 billion pool that U.S advertisers spend on TV “as the TV ad ecosystem moves to streaming,” said CEO Anthony Wood on a Wednesday earnings call. The “large secular shift” to streaming from “traditional linear TV” is “causing a lot of positive trends for us,” said Wood. The streaming TV provider is using automatic content recognition to measure audiences, said Scott Rosenberg, senior vice president-advertising. "It gives us visibility into what's happening on the linear side of viewership."

Virtual MVPDs, which once touted their skinny bundles and low introductory prices, increasingly seem to banking on their subscriber bases transitioning to fatter, costlier packages, The Diffusion Group senior adviser Brad Schlachter blogged Tuesday. Examples include YouTube TV adding various Turner networks to its lineup, with an increase in its base cost, PlayStation Vue axing its cheaper Access Slim package, and AT&T hinting at a price increase this year for its DirecTV Now entry tier, he said. Livestreaming pay-TV operators "should proceed with caution" since lower prices and consumer choices for skinnier bundles are what attracted consumers, said Schlachter. He said increased competition could come from "cord cobbler" services where subscribers build a la carte packages.

A judge rejected Disney arguments seeking injunction stopping Redbox from selling codes that allow streaming of movies. U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson of Los Angeles in a docket 17-8655 order (in Pacer) Tuesday said Disney includes a "Codes are not for sale or transfer" notice inside DVD cases, but there's no evidence Redbox assented to that restriction. Ferguson said Disney's copyrights don't give it power to stop consumers from selling or transferring Blu-ray and DVD discs, and its "improper" leveraging of its digital copyrights conflicts with secondary transfers of physical copies. Disney outside counsel didn't comment Wednesday. It sued Redbox in December alleging copyright violations (see 1712010053).

Music artists and labels don't profit off music alone anymore, and music streaming services like Spotify and Pandora haven't generated ongoing profit, so YouTube stands alone making money off music itself, CreaTV Media Chairman Peter Csathy blogged Monday. Video-first YouTube's royalty structure is also fundamentally different from audio-first services, he said. Spotify used that "un-level playing field" to negotiate better royalties from the major labels last year, he said, saying Vevo's sole major label holdout, Warner Music, agreed in 2016 to license its videos to Vevo to reap higher royalties.

Adult video and images company ALS Scan and computer storage companies Steadfast and Cloudflare are opposing rival summary judgment motions in ALS' copyright infringement complaint against the defendant data firms. Steadfast hasn't adopted or reasonably implemented a termination policy for repeat copyright infringers, since it continues to provide storage services to imagebam.com and its subpages even after receiving more than 1,500 infringement notices on that site, said pornography company ALS Scan in a docket 16-cv-5051 opposition (in Pacer) Friday to Steadfast's motion for summary judgment. ALS Scan said Steadfast doesn't get safe harbor protection for copyright infringement since it didn't terminate imagebam.com. In opposition (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, ALS argued against Cloudflare's motion for summary judgment, arguing the data storage company won't act on infringement notices, or forward email notices of infringement to hosts or site owners, and that it doesn't follow up on such email notices to ascertain whether the infringing content was removed. Cloudflare's opposition (in Pacer) Friday to ALS' motion for summary judgment said ALS can't establish a contributory infringement claim. Cloudflare said that unlike virtually all copyright claimants with which it has worked, ALS refuses to use its "simple and accurate" process for complaint processing, relying instead on "unworkable and defective" email communications.

Commissioners unanimously approved a draft order eliminating a requirement that broadcasters and cable carriers keep hard-copy books of FCC rules on their premises. The item was slated for Thursday’s FCC meeting but, as expected (see 1802160024), will be removed from the agenda after the early approval on circulation. Though the draft had already been circulated to eighth-floor offices, it was added to the on-circulation list in preparation for being approved ahead of the meeting, an official said. The requirement applies to low-power TV, TV and FM translators, TV and FM booster stations, cable TV relay station licensees, and certain cable operators. Eliminating the requirement "will advance the Commission’s goal of reducing outdated regulations and unnecessary regulatory burdens," the order said. The electronic version of the Code of Federal Regulations available online "is often more current than the printed version, which is published only once a year," the order said. "Removing this requirement also would help small broadcasters in particular by enabling them to cut unnecessary costs."

Encouraged by Pandora’s recent management changes and a renewed focus on its core ad business and profitability, Wedbush Securities repeated an “outperform” rating on the streaming music service in a Friday investor note before a Wednesday earnings call. Revenue from Pandora's ad-supported service should continue to grow as users migrate to in-car listening, as the household penetration rate for connected devices increases and as ad loads and rates rise. But “meaningful changes are necessary to reinvigorate profitable growth,” said analyst Michael Pachter. Pandora’s current valuation “heavily discounts the size of Pandora's user base and the potential for an acquisition,” he said. Wedbush projects a Q4 ad revenue decline of 5.5 percent year on year on a 7.4 percent decline in active users and a 1 percent slip in listener hours, partially offset by the introductions of play-to-unlock premium video ads in late Q4 and programmatic video ads in Q3.

VidAngel's complaint of collusion among content companies -- backed by detailed circumstantial evidence and its interpretation of a written agreement among the studios -- should have satisfied the obligation of showing sufficient factual allegations to make its claim plausible, the appellant told the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a docket 17-56665 opening brief (in Pacer) posted Monday. The streaming service is appealing a federal court's 2017 rejection of antitrust claims against the studios for refusing to deal with it (see 1708110038). Counsel for appellee studios didn't comment Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald of Los Angeles ordered streaming media player company TickBox not to provide links to any addons or other software it believes link to pirate streaming sites and to issue a software update that will delete such addons previously downloaded onto the boxes. A docket 17-cv-7496 preliminary injunction (in Pacer) issued Tuesday also ordered that within 24 hours of getting a written notice from a plaintiff that any such addon available through TickBox devices leads to pirate sites, the company remove or disable access through its menus. TickBox was fighting the preliminary injunction sought by Universal Columbia Disney, Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros., Amazon and Netflix (see 1712290026). TickBox outside counsel didn't comment Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson of Los Angeles crafted overly broad definitions of "war" and "warlike" that would exclude from coverage even acts of terrorism that defendant Atlantic Specialty Insurance acknowledged would otherwise be covered, appellants Universal Cable Productions and Northern Entertainment Productions said in a docket 17-56672 opening brief (in Pacer) Monday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The video production companies sued in 2016 when denied coverage of expenses due to a TV production relocating in 2014 because of violence related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (see 1704260023). Atlantic didn't comment Tuesday.