Securus claimed two victories in recent proceedings with the Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on patent invalidation filings by Global Tel*Link (GTL), Securus said in a news release Wednesday. The PTAB upheld the validity of Securus' patents -- one for a system of controlling inmate access to a telephone carrier network by using VoIP data packets, and another for methods for processing VoIP calls originating within a prison -- that were challenged by GTL, Securus said. Securus CEO Richard Smith said he's "pleased" the PTAB viewed the "key" patents as being valid. GTL didn't comment.

The Copyright Office said it plans a study assessing the impact and effectiveness of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Section 512, including general operation of Section 512's safe harbor provisions. The CO said Wednesday it's doing the study in response to a recommendation from Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante and a request from House Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich. Both Conyers and Pallante said Section 512's operation “poses policy issues that warrant study and analysis,” the CO said in a notice to be published in Thursday's Federal Register. The Department of Commerce also “noted ambiguities in the application of the safe harbor and encouraged service providers and rightsholders to discuss and pursue voluntary improvements,” the CO said. The study also will examine the effectiveness of the current notice-and-takedown process, the counter-notification process and the legal standards that apply under Section 512. The CO said it's seeking public comment on the Section 512 study, with comments due March 21. The CO said it also plans at least one public meeting related to its 512 study. The CO also announced Monday that it's planning a study of DMCA Section 1201, including the CO's current triennial process for granting exemptions to Section 1201's ban on circumvention of technological protection measures (see 1512280030).

Two more class-action complaints filed Tuesday against Vizio bring to nine the number of federal lawsuits brought since mid-November accusing the company of violating the Video Privacy Protection Act through the “smart interactivity” viewer-tracking feature on Vizio smart TVs (see 1512060005). The nine complaints, all but two of which were filed in California, allege the feature tracks the content viewers are consuming, links it with their IP addresses and other personally identifiable information and sells the information to marketing and advertising companies without anyone’s knowledge or consent. One of the two Tuesday complaints was filed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, in which plaintiff Kathleen Sloan of Concord, California, concedes that “after initial setup,” owners do have the option to turn off the smart interactivity feature “by navigating through the settings menu on their TV” and “toggling” the feature to the “disabled” setting. But the complaint goes into elaborate detail about the “barriers” owners face in trying to opt out of smart interactivity. Among them, “the owner would need to be aware that they have been ‘opted in’ to the program, and no such warning is contained on the product packaging, sales receipt, user manual, or initial setup screen,” the complaint says. And even if the user successfully disables smart interactivity from the settings menu, Vizio and its third-party partners “still have access to all of the data” that the feature previously collected and stored about the owner, it says. Vizio hasn't filed a formal answer to any of the complaints, but lawyers for the company successfully motioned for a deadline extension to mid-February for filing an answer to one of the earliest complaints. Among the reasons, “several related class actions concerning the same subject matter as the instant case” have been filed, and Vizio lawyers are “diligently working to coordinate among the various cases,” the motion said. Vizio representatives didn’t comment.

University of Georgia music business lecturer David Lowery filed a $150 million class-action lawsuit against Spotify Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, claiming the company knowingly and illegally distributes copyrighted music without obtaining necessary mechanical licenses. Lowery, who leads the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, claims the songs Spotify is illegally distributing include four Cracker songs -- “Almond Grove," "Get On Down the Road," "King of Bakersfield" and "Tonight I Cross the Border.” Spotify has distributed copyrighted music to more than 75 million users without properly obtaining needed mechanical licenses, Lowery said in the lawsuit. Spotify's publicly admitted failure to obtain the mechanical licenses “creates substantial harm and injury to the copyright holders, and diminishes the integrity of the works,” Lowery said in the lawsuit. “We are committed to paying songwriters and publishers every penny," a Spotify spokesman said in a statement. "Unfortunately, especially in the United States, the data necessary to confirm the appropriate rightsholders is often missing, wrong, or incomplete. When rightsholders are not immediately clear, we set aside the royalties we owe until we are able to confirm their identities.” Spotify is working “closely” with the National Music Publishers Association to “find the best way to correctly pay the royalties we have set aside and we are investing in the resources and technical expertise to build a comprehensive publishing administration system to solve this problem for good,” the spokesman said.

The Copyright Office said it's planning a study of implementation of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Section 1201, including the CO's triennial rulemaking process for granting exemptions to Section 1201's ban on circumvention of technological protection measures. The Library of Congress granted 10 CO-recommended exemptions to Section 1201 in October, prompting some stakeholders to renew their calls for Congress to place limits on what they believe is DMCA's expanding scope (see 1510270056). The CO is also doing a separate study on what provisions in existing U.S. copyright laws are implicated by the spread of software in everyday products and whether those laws affect innovation in the use of software in products (see 1512150050). The CO's planned study will also examine the existing permanent exemptions to Section 1201, the law's anti-trafficking provisions and other Section 1201-related consumer issues, the office said in a notice set to appear in Tuesday's Federal Register. The current triennial Section 1201 exemptions review process “is resource-intensive for both participants and the Office,” the CO said Monday. The office is considering adjusting the triennial process to allow for presumptive renewal of previously granted exemptions “when there is no meaningful opposition to renewal.” The requirement that previously granted exemptions be re-evaluated during each triennial process is “an area of particular concern" given that several of the exemptions granted in October were essentially the same as exemptions granted during the 2012 triennial review, the CO said. The office said it's seeking comment on its proposed study, including whether the office should consider other Section 1201 provisions in its review. Comments are due Feb. 25 and reply comments are due March 25. The CO said it also plans at least one public meeting to gather additional comments after the comment deadlines lapse.

The Patent and Trademark Office's online systems have been restored after a "major power outage" last week shut down the agency's IT systems (see 1512230042), the PTO said in a blog post Monday. Customers are able to use the PTO's online systems to search for and file items and to make payments, the blog post said, but because of work needed to repair and stabilize the power supply and hardware, "it is possible that some or all systems may need to be taken offline again." Online systems "may come and go without notice," the PTO said, and the agency will "keep deadline flexibility in mind" based upon the "results and the stability of [its] operations."

A “major power outage” Tuesday night at Patent and Trademark Office headquarters in Washington “damaged equipment that required the subsequent shutdown of many of our online and IT systems,” the agency said in a message posted Wednesday at the top of its home page. The outage and secondary damage knocked out “our filing, searching, and payment systems, as well as the systems our examiners across the country use,” PTO said. “We are working diligently to assess the operational impact on all our systems and to determine how soon they can be safely brought back into service.” The agency will give “status updates” on its systems alert page “as they become available,” and on its Facebook and Twitter accounts, it said. At 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, a systems alert page update reported that "the impacts may be felt through the Christmas holiday."

Pandora signed separate multiyear licensing agreements with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc., that will benefit Pandora while “modernizing compensation in the U.S. for ASCAP and BMI songwriters and publishers," it said Tuesday. In the BMI agreement, Pandora agreed to withdraw its appeal of the May order in a recent BMI rate case (see 1505150039). ASCAP CEO Elizabeth Matthews called the agreement “good news for music fans and music creators” and “a sign of progress” in the push for better streaming payments for songwriters, composers and music publishers. BMI’s agreement with Pandora is “comparable to the other direct deals in the marketplace, but it also allows us to amicably conclude our lengthy rate court litigation and focus on what drives each of our businesses -- the music,” said BMI CEO Mike O’Neill. Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews said the company’s agreements with performing rights organizations and direct deals with music publishers demonstrate the company's "progress in working together to grow the music ecosystem.” Terms weren't disclosed, but the parties said they allow ASCAP and BMI to deliver improved performance royalties for songwriters and publishers, while Pandora will benefit from more rate certainty and the ability to add flexibility to its product offering over time. The public performance royalties Pandora pays to rights holders of master recordings aren't affected by the agreements.

Pandora and Warner/Chappell Music signed a multiyear licensing agreement covering Warner/Chappell's entire catalog. Specific terms of the licensing agreement remain confidential, but the deal means Warner/Chappell can “obtain its goal of delivering improved performance royalties for its songwriters, while Pandora will benefit from greater rate certainty,” Pandora said Tuesday in a news release.

Several industry groups praised introduction of the Copyright Office for the Digital Economy (CODE) Act (HR-4241) in statements Monday and Tuesday. The bill would separate the CO from the Library of Congress but keep it within the legislative branch. HR-4241 also would require the CO director to regularly study whether the office's IT systems were meeting the copyright community's needs (see 1512140029). The MPAA said it believes HR-4241 advances “the conversation on [CO] modernization. The importance of copyright to our culture and our economy demands a more autonomous [CO] that has the flexibility it needs to serve copyright owners and users.” Newspaper Association of America President David Chavern said he hopes HR-4241 will address “troubling aspects” in the copyright registration process, like the CO's current requirement that print newspapers register copyright by submitting content in microfilm format. “This is grossly out of touch with today's technology,” Chavern said in a news release.