New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) vetoed AB-5837 Wednesday, drawing praise from publishing advocates. The measure would have required publishers to license e-books to libraries under “reasonable terms,” including limits on the number of users who could simultaneously have access to particular titles and for a particular number of days. AB-5837 “would have forced authors, publishers, and other copyright owners to involuntarily grant licenses to New York libraries for their digital works on terms decided by the state of New York,” CA CEO Keith Kupferschmid said Thursday in a statement. “The bill was clearly unconstitutional, based on a campaign of misinformation, and in violation of federal copyright law.” Association of American Publishers President Maria Pallante thanked Hochul for "taking decisive action to protect the legal framework that has long incentivized the American private sector to invest in, publish, and distribute original works of authorship to the public, in service to society. The bill that she vetoed was rushed through the state legislature in response to a coordinated, misinformation campaign supported by Big Tech interests and lobbying groups that are notorious for wanting to weaken copyright protections for their own gain."

WideOpenWest and movie production companies suing it for secondary copyright infringement liability are at odds over attempts to get the names and addresses of thousands of WOW broadband subscribers. The plaintiffs told the U.S. District Court in Denver in a reply (docket 21-cv-1901) last week that WOW counsel never raised in discussions the time burden issue it's now bringing up. They said the court already ruled the plaintiffs can't use the identifications to bring other lawsuits, though WOW still claims that's the motivation. WOW said in its opposition last month it "would be extremely costly and labor-intensive" to ID the subscribers at issue and send them notice of a court order. WOW said if it needs to address its safe harbor defense, it would produce documents and information showing the stages of its Digital Millennium Copyright Act process, up to terminating subscribers' accounts, and no part of the inquiry requires discovery about the identities of individual accused infringers.

Panasonic agreed to license Sisvel’s VP9 patent portfolio, said the Luxembourg licensor Thursday. The VP9 video codec supports video resolutions higher than 1080p and lossless audio coding. It also supports HDR video formats using hybrid log-gamma and perceptual quantization technologies. VP9 licensees pay Sisvel on a “running royalty scheme” or an alternative “committed volume scheme.”

Starz is essentially arguing that the Supreme Court misinterpreted the Copyright Act statute of limitations, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit "is bound by the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the statute, not Starz’s," defendant-appellant MGM Domestic Television told the appellate court in a docket 21-55379 reply brief Friday. MGM is appealing a lower court's denial of a motion to dismiss some Starz copyright claims on MGM licensing content to other content service providers while Starz allegedly had exclusive license (see 2111040039). MGM said no court of appeals has accepted departing from the three-year limit on retrospective relief going back from the time of the suit as laid out in SCOTUS' Petrella decision, MGM said. Starz outside counsel didn't comment Monday.

A U.S. magistrate judge's recommendation that an alleged Russian streaming piracy operation pay music labels $83 million in statutory damages is "a major step forward to protect artists, songwriters, record labels, and consumers from one of the most pernicious forms of online piracy," said RIAA Chief Legal Officer Ken Doroshow Monday. In the U.S. District Court report and recommendation last week (docket 18-cv-00957), Judge Theresa Buchanan of Alexandria, Virginia, said the plaintiffs sufficiently argued that defendant Tofig Kurbanov and his "stream ripping" websites that convert YouTube URLs to MP3s of copyrighted music circumvent the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Doroshow said the lawsuit "sets out vital first principles that should chart a path for further enforcement against foreign stream-rippers and other forms of online piracy that undermine the legitimate market for music.” Kurbanov's lawyer didn't comment.

Movie production companies suing WideOpenWest haven't given "any legal, factual, or equitable reason why WOW’s provision of Internet access, which has a multitude of perfectly legal, non-infringing uses, should subject it" to secondary copyright infringement liability, the company said Wednesday. The docket 21-cv-1901 reply in U.S. District Court in Denver was in support of its motion to dismiss the suit (see 2109210033). In the objection to the motion, the production companies said WOW's "so-called 'robust' policy [of subscriber warnings and suspensions] is a bust" and cited one subscriber whose service was only suspended after a letter from plaintiff's counsel.

Copyright infringement claims by music labels (see 2111220061) fail to state facts enough to constitute a claim on which there can be relief, and the statute of limitations bars the claims because they happened outside the three-year period, Charter Communications told the U.S. District Court in Denver in an answer Tuesday (docket 21-cv-02020). Any infringement "was innocent and was not willful," and Charter didn't cause, encourage or induce the alleged primary infringement, the company said. Outside counsel for the plaintiff music labels didn't comment. The lawsuit is one of two related infringement suits against Charter by labels (see 1903250004).

The comment period for a draft policy statement on licensing negotiations and remedies for standard-essential patents subject to reasonable and non-discriminatory or fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms is extended until Feb. 4, DOJ announced Monday. DOJ extended the comment period 30 days with the Patent and Trademark Office and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The statement “seeks to promote good-faith licensing negotiations and addresses the scope of remedies available to patent owners,” DOJ said.

Nanosys’ application to trademark xQDEF for its next generation of quantum-dot enhancement film products cleared its 30-day publication window Thursday at the Patent and Trademark Office with no oppositions filed, agency records show. The application proceeds next to a PTO notice of allowance, triggering the start of a three-year clock for Nanosys to file a statement of use attesting to xQDEF’s commercial deployment. Nanosys said xQDEF enables lower-cost QD backlights with advanced features and in new form factors without sacrificing QDEF’s efficiency or color performance (see 2012300003).

Vivo joined the Access Advance patent pool, gaining use of more than 16,000 patents essential to the H.265 video codec standard, said the pool's licensing administrator Thursday. With the addition of Vivo, the program “has now licensed a substantial majority of the smartphone market, including many of the largest smartphone manufacturers,” said Access Advance CEO Peter Moller. Vivo is joining as "a licensee only," emailed Moller. "They don't have (to their current knowledge) any HEVC essential patents," he said of the High Efficiency Video Coding standard.