Public Knowledge filed a joint brief on behalf of Google's case against Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood because “Section 230 is a critical part of letting us all communicate online,” said a PK spokeswoman Monday. Without that part of the Communications Act, it's “very easy for overbroad liability and procedural fishing expeditions to shut down intermediaries necessary for communication and encourage them to restrict and restrain their customers' communications even more,” she said. “We've criticized Google's restrictions of customer communications in the past -- restrictions put in place due to pressures applied in the absence of protections like section 230.” That responded to accusations by David Lowery, a music business lecturer at the University of Georgia and a songwriter, that PK is among many advocacy groups serving the exclusive interests of Google (see 1502020047).

A proposal by IEEE to update the IEEE Standards Association’s (IEEE-SA) patent policy won't be challenged by the Department of Justice, DOJ said Monday. IEEE had contacted the DOJ and asked whether the proposed revisions to its patent policy violated antitrust laws. Based on reasons IEEE gave DOJ for the patent update, such as adding clarity to “the commitment patent holders voluntarily make regarding the licensing of patent claims,” Justice said it decided not to challenge the new patent policy. “IEEE’s decision to update its policy, if adopted by the IEEE Board, has the potential to help patent holders and standards implementers to reach mutually beneficial licensing agreements and to facilitate the adoption of pro-competitive standards,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse, who heads Justice's Antitrust Division.

The Media Institute asked the Supreme Court to review Kienitz v. Sconnie Nation, the organization said in a news release Tuesday. The institute filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking the court to review an “errant expansion of the fair use doctrine that is gaining traction among lower courts and eroding the rights of photographers,” it said. Photographer Michael Kienitz alleged that Sconnie Nation, a clothing company, infringed his copyrighted photo of a public official, said the institute. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court ruling that the company’s use of the photo was fair use, it said.

Intellectual property rights deserve the same protections as physical property rights, said an open letter to Congress from 67 advocacy groups, industry associations and scholars Monday. “We must ensure that American creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs are protected from theft to maintain international competitiveness in the digital economy,” Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform president, said in a blog post publicizing the letter. Representatives from the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Policy Innovation, the International Center for Law and Economics and the National Small Business Association are among the letter’s signatories.

Broadcast Music Inc. settled with a Louisiana restaurant over its alleged infringement of songs in BMI’s repertory, said documents filed in U.S. District Court in Baton Rouge Tuesday. Papi’s Mexican Cuisine allegedly failed to license songs played there, which included the works of Van Morrison and Vince Gill. BMI was joined by other plaintiffs including Universal Music and Praxis International Communications. Papi’s will make regular payments to the plaintiffs through Feb. 15, 2016, said the documents in docket 3:14-cv-758. Papi's didn't comment.

SoundExchange filed notices of its intent to audit the royalty payments from CBS Radio and iHeartMedia from 2011, 2012 and 2013, with the Copyright Royalty Board, said the CRB in Wednesday's Federal Register. It said SoundExchange filed the notices Dec. 23.

It’s big business for “litigation factories that take advantages of anomalies in the patent system to extort financial settlements out of businesses large and small,” said Cisco General Counsel Mark Chandler Tuesday in a blog post on the formation last week of the United for Patent Reform. Cisco is a charter member (see 1501150035). United for Patent Reform is “a broad-based coalition of businesses” that will work “to fight wanton abuse of the patent litigation system by patent assertion entities (PAEs),” said Chandler. PAEs are companies that “neither invent nor produce products, but simply buy patents for litigation value,” he said. Citing Allied Security Trust data, Chandler said PAEs bought as many patents in the first half of 2014 as they did in all of 2013. The number of lawsuits brought by PAEs in 2014 were triple those of 2006, he said. “As our coalition’s membership illustrates, this is a problem that includes businesses of all shapes and sizes.” Among the congressional remedies the coalition seeks are measures that put the “burden of litigation costs on those who bring suits that prove to be for extortion value only or where parties demand inefficient, costly litigation procedures,” he said. “Over the next weeks and months, Cisco, in conjunction with United for Patent Reform and its member companies, will make the case for patent reform in the hope that Congress will approve meaningful reforms soon. This is imperative if we’re to break the outlandish and exploitive business model that has encouraged patent assertion entities to thrive.”

MPAA sued Shenzhen Xunlei Networking Technology (Xunlei), a Chinese peer-to-peer file-sharing site, MPAA said in a news release Tuesday. It said the lawsuit, which seeks damages and a public apology for Xunlei’s alleged copyright infringement, was filed Monday in the Nanshan District Court in Shenzhen, China. “A healthy, sustainable and developing online video sector will greatly benefit audiences and movie and technology businesses, however this outcome is only possible if quality film and television content is respected and protected at every stage of the value chain,” said President Mike Ellis of Motion Picture Association-Asia Pacific, which represents MPAA in the region. “For too long we have witnessed valuable creative content being taken and monetized without the permission of the copyright owner,” he said in the release. “That has to stop and stop now.” The U.S. Trade Representative cited Xunlei as a threat to intellectual property in USTR's notorious markets list in 2012 (see 1212170079). Xunlei couldn’t be reached for comment.

Restrictive copyright laws for electronics and software also apply to the Internet of Things, said Corynne McSherry, Electronic Frontier Foundation intellectual property director, in a blog post Tuesday. Licensing models for technology are bad for consumers and innovation, she said. McSherry recommended Congress repeal of Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201, which prohibits the circumvention of technological protection measures, except in the case of nonprofit libraries, public archives and educational institutions. She also said end-user license agreements, which govern a consumer’s use of a product’s software, should be limited. IoT shouldn’t become the “‘Internet of Things I Think I Own But Can’t Control,’” McSherry said.

The U.S. District Court in New York mostly upheld its November ruling (see 1411170043) against SiriusXM on the question of the company's failure to pay performance royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings, said court documents filed Thursday. Judge Colleen McMahon didn’t enter a summary judgment ruling in favor of plaintiffs Flo & Eddie, but said she would provide such a ruling if the two performers proceeded “individually” and not as a “class representative.” Flo & Eddie will seek class-action certification; they have until April 3 to take such action, said Harvey Geller of Gradstein & Marzano, who represents the plaintiffs. McMahon said she agreed with SiriusXM that common law copyright damages could be recovered for only three years prior to a lawsuit, which, in the plaintiff’s case, would date to Aug. 16, 2010. Flo & Eddie had argued that such damages could be recovered up to six years before a suit. SiriusXM didn’t comment.