The district court “improperly” granted the Recording Industry Association of America its motion to dismiss Yout’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint, “erroneously concluding that Yout’s software platform was a circumvention tool,” said Yout’s opening brief Thursday (docket 22-2760) at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The lower court’s dismissal came “despite the preponderance of disputed issue of fact -- and the clear need for discovery and expert testimony,” it said.

GoDaddy isn’t liable for a gambling service allegedly hijacking a domain name due to Communication Decency Act Section 230 immunity, a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled Friday (docket 21-16182).

Securus failed to show that California’s interim cap on incarcerated person calling services (IPCS) intrastate rates must be set aside, the 2nd District California Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. The court affirmed the California Public Utilities Commission’s 2021 decision to provide interim relief by capping the rate at 7 cents per minute and banning ancillary fees.

The 17 Samsung data breach class actions pending in various jurisdictions were transferred Wednesday to the U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Camden and consolidated under U.S. District Judge Christine O’Hearn, said a transfer order signed by Karen Caldwell, chair of the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Chief Judge Renee Bumb in Camden signed an order consenting to the transfer and consolidation of the cases under the judge who, though praised by the panel as “a skilled jurist,” has no previous MDL experience.

The second known privacy class action in four days seeking to hold Apple accountable for its allegedly deceptive use of personal data from iPhones and other devices (see 2302010017) was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan.

Plaintiff Cynthia Lepur fails to state a claim against student loan servicer Educational Credit Management Corp. (ECMC) "upon which relief can be granted," because her class action “violates the doctrines of claim splitting and claim preclusion,” said ECMC’s motion to dismiss Wednesday (docket 3:23-cv-00014) to U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego. ECMC alternatively is seeking to strike Lepur’s class-action allegations.

T-Mobile “tried to downplay the value of what was stolen,” alleged the eighth federal privacy class action (4:23-cv-00438) arising from the carrier’s November data breach that it disclosed in a Jan. 19 8-K report (see 2301230046). T-Mobile believes the bad actor first retrieved data through a compromised application programming interface (API) around Nov. 25, but the company failed to detect the unauthorized activity until Jan. 5, the complaint noted.

Cloud server company Hyperlync Technologies sued T-Mobile Tuesday for breach of contract and quantum meruit. It alleged in a class action (docket 2:23-cv-00734) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles that the carrier failed to honor agreements it had with Sprint before T-Mobile's Sprint buy closed in April 2020.

T-Mobile will take California regulators to federal court over a decision to switch state USF contribution to a connections-based mechanism. In a complaint Wednesday against the California Public Utilities Commission (case 3:23-cv-00483), T-Mobile and subsidiaries urged the U.S. District Court of Northern California to preliminarily enjoin a $1.11 monthly per-line fee from taking effect April 1. A consumer advocate scoffed Thursday at T-Mobile’s claim that the order hurts low-income households.

The automatic stay under the bankruptcy code “does not apply” to the seven-state robocalling lawsuit against several defendants, including Michael Smith, who filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition Jan. 18, Assistant Texas Attorney General Abigail Ryan told U.S. District Judge George Hanks for Southern Texas in Houston in a virtual status hearing Tuesday. Ryan wrote the memorandum of law filed Monday with the court, arguing the bankruptcy code contains an “explicit exception to the automatic stay” permitting the plaintiff states “to proceed with police power proceedings, such as this suit” (see 2301310033).