MindGeek and its adult video hosting site Pornhub materially contributed to the child sexual abuse materials on the site, and that makes it a content creator not entitled to Communications Decency Act Section 230 protections, plaintiffs told the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Monday. In their opposition (docket 2:21-cv-04920) to MindGeek's motion to dismiss their suit (see 2205240029), the plaintiffs -- all of whom allegedly were juvenile subjects of sex trafficking and abuse videos hosted on the site -- said the MindGeek defendants knowingly benefited from their participation by soliciting, curating, modifying and reuploading illegal content. Counsel for the defendants didn't comment.

Longport and Irvintgon, New Jersey, appealed to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals a lower court's dismissal of their suit seeking franchise fees from Netflix and Hulu under the state's Cable TV Act (see 2205230028) per a notice of appeal Friday (docket 2:21-cv-15303). Counsel for the streamers didn't comment.

The 50-50 Charter-Comcast joint venture to develop a national streaming platform on branded 4K streaming devices and smart TVs (see 2206170008) brings together two “legacy cable providers” that have “an aptitude for the aggregation side,” plus lots of “interactions with consumers who are at the point where they're considering video products,” Charter Chief Financial Officer Jessica Fischer told a Credit Suisse investors conference Wednesday. “When you click that together with what really Comcast has created, it's a world-class platform that we can deploy fully across a national footprint,” she said. “Our opportunity to sort of reach scale there and to do so pretty quickly is very good.” Charter’s cable subscriptions have “shrunk more slowly” than those of “some of our peers” because “we're always looking to provide the packages that consumers want,” said Fischer. The offering with Comcast “enables us to sort of do that even more broadly, whether consumers want linear, whether they want streaming, whether they want skinny, whether they want fully loaded,” she said. “We're going to be in a place to pull together what it is that consumers are looking for.”

Google and tech industry interests are backing Cloudflare in its fight against being found in contempt of the terms of a permanent injunction against a video privacy site/Cloudflare customer (see 2206160024). Google said it's conferring with counsel for the plaintiffs, a variety of Israeli video content companies that sued pirate site Israel.TV, in advance of a possible motion to modify or dissolve the injunctions, in a letter (docket 21-cv-11024) dated Thursday to U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of Manhattan. It said it's concerned that injunctions bind the parties, their agents and others participating with them, but the injunctions in this case bid various third parties who fall outside those categories, "including Google." Nor do the injunctions make clear what the bound parties are supposed to do or not do, it said. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, in a request to file an amicus brief in opposition to the contempt motion, said they "are greatly concerned by the possible consequences that a finding of contempt, and any enforcement of the underlying injunction against unaffiliated non-party online service providers, will have on the due process rights of those service providers, and on the free speech and due process rights of Internet users generally." They said in the case of a copyright infringement suit against a website operator, proceedings against unaffiliated service providers "present a particular danger of blocking lawful and constitutionally protected speech, and of imposing unfair and unnecessary compliance burdens." Outside counsel for the video content companies didn't comment Friday.

Cloudflare and Israeli video content providers are at odds over Cloudflare's alleged role in now-defunct pirate video site Israel.tv. Cloudflare said it can't remove content from customers' websites, so the contempt motion against it for allegedly violating the default judgment and permanent injunction awarded the plaintiffs in April is "puzzling," the cybersecurity services firm told the U.S. District Court in Manhattan Thursday in an opposition (docket 21-cv-11024). It said the contempt motion seeks to direct Cloudflare outside the injunction's scope even though the problem with the pirate site was resolved because Israel.tv is no longer available online. The content company plaintiffs said in the contempt motion if Cloudflare quit providing its content delivery network services provided to Israell.tv "then the infringing service might be prevented from continuing its illegal conduct."

Universal is making more films in 2023 than 2022, while other major studios are doing less, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said Tuesday at a Credit Suisse investor conference. He said its linear video businesses remain strong, though declining, but the ad-supported Peacock streaming service is growing rapidly. He said he went into 2022 concerned about NBCU's movie business until the back-to-back successes of the Top Gun and Jurassic World films. Shell said Peacock growth and the overall economy remain areas where the company is paying close attention. Peacock has more than 13 million paying subscribers, with the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl driving a big jump in growth in Q1. He said despite the lack of big sports events and originals in Q2, Peacock is retaining most of those Q1 subscriber gains: "We thought we would have more churn." Shell said in the back half of the year, Peacock should have more ramping up of paid subscriber growth, driven by other big content draws including content being pulled from Hulu for Peacock.

C Spire wants to drop its 2019 retransmission consent complaint against Gray Television, it said in a docket 19-159 motion Friday.

QVC is live on fuboTV, making it the first livestream shopping channel on the premium streaming service, the companies said Thursday. With the fuboTV add, QVC reaches some 14 million virtual MVPD subscribers, it said.

Good cause exists for the International Trade Commission to grant Dish Network’s unopposed motion for a two-week deadline extension to June 29 to move to limit or quash the June 3 subpoenas served on it by Broadband iTV, Dish said in a Wednesday filing in docket 337-TA-1315. The ITC opened a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into BBiTV allegations that cable set-tops from Comcast, Charter and Altice infringe four VOD and electronic program guide patents (see 2204280027). The extension will give BBiTV and Dish additional time “to engage in discussions in an attempt to resolve any disputes relating to the scope of the subpoenas,” said Dish.

Palo Alto Networks enlisted X-Files actress Gillian Anderson to star in a "Zero Trust with Zero Exceptions" ad campaign aimed at bringing “everyday cyber risks to the forefront of public awareness,” said the cybersecurity company Monday. “With the world working from anywhere, using applications that are hosted in multiple clouds or data centers, the cyber attack surface has expanded significantly," said Palo Alto CEO Nikesh Arora. "The first generation of zero trust cybersecurity solutions can't keep up and are inconsistent. With this campaign we sought to highlight the urgency around cybersecurity.” The campaign debuts this week and will run across digital media for the next year.