Netflix and Hulu haven't shown the U.S. District Court in St. Louis has jurisdiction over Creve Coueur's legal complaint about the streaming services, the Missouri city said in a docket 18-cv-01495-SNLJ reply (in Pacer) Thursday supporting its motion to remand the case to state court. It said Hulu didn't meet the $5 million threshold needed for Class Action Fairness Act jurisdiction, and the two have yet to meet the burden of showing they properly removed the case to federal court (see 1809100020). The city said Missouri state courts are best positioned to decide whether the streaming services must pay fees under Missouri's Video Service Providers Act, and it didn't waive its right to seek remand when it filed a motion to consolidate the case with similar litigation against DirecTV and Dish Network. Counsel for the streaming services didn't comment Friday.

Univision is complaining to the FCC and FTC about -- and suing Dish Network over -- advertising by the direct broadcast satellite company featuring Univision, even though its content went dark on Dish at June's end (see 1807020030). Dish said the marketing materials were an oversight. In a letter dated Monday to the agencies' chairmen, Univision said Dish made "excuses" for its materials but continued to market Univision program services months after they were dropped and Dish should waive cancellation fees for customers who signed up since June 30 and release from contract customers who had watched the broadcaster extensively. In a docket 17-cv-05148-AJN-OTW amended answer and counterclaim (in Pacer) last week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Univision alleged Dish did false advertising, breached a contract and infringed trademarks for advertising on its website and on flyers and the site of a Dish retailer that Dish still distributed Univision services. Dish sought unspecified damages and permanent injunction against using Univision logos and marks when it doesn't have a right to distribute that programming. Dish emailed it's "a business dispute," with Univision demanding "considerably" higher fees "despite a material decline in its overall ratings." It said when channels went dark, it tried to remove references on marketing materials and websites, but the logos of some Univision channels were inadvertently left on regarding a package and have been removed. It's providing its DishLatino customers with a $5 monthly credit, replacement content and antennas in select markets.

Sears owes Samsung Electronics America $8.05 million in unpaid trade debt, placing it 13th among Sears' largest unsecured creditors, said Sears Chapter 11 papers (in Pacer) filed Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Samsung didn’t comment. Sears had $6.9 billion in total assets and $11.3 billion in total debt Aug. 4, the latest financial information available, said the filing. Sears owns “significant physical and intangible assets,” is a leading home appliance retailer and “a significant player in the rapidly emerging connected solutions market,” through "exclusive" national partnerships with Uber and others, it said.

TVEyes' petition for writ of certiorari "is exceptionally important" because the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision (see 1802270025) it seeks to overturn runs contrary to fair use principles needed for media commentary and would let copyright owners stifle criticism, said tech, civil liberties and media critic interests in a Supreme Court docket 18-321 amicus brief Friday. They said the 2nd Circuit decision is contrary to the Supreme Court's 1994 Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music that commercial use by a defendant without a licensing fee doesn't preclude a fair use defense. Signing the amicus brief were Electronic Frontier Foundation, Internet Archive, Organization for Transformative Works, Wikimedia Foundation and media critics including Fair and Accuracy in Reporting. Respondent Fox News Network didn't comment Monday.

Amazon, Microsoft and Sony "publicly exploit" the voice of Dion DiMucci on his recording of the 1960s hit "The Wanderer" to promote sales online of the Fallout 4 videogame for PlayStation and Xbox, violating his “common law right of publicity,” alleged the singer-songwriter in a complaint (in Pacer) filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The companies use DiMucci's "identity, appropriating it for their commercial advantage, without consent, which has financially damaged him by the loss of the value of the use of his identity they appropriated and the profits they earned therefrom,” said the complaint. Amazon, Microsoft and Sony lost their authorization to use the song with the October 2016 expiration of a license agreement they signed with ZeniMax Media, which publishes Fallout 4, and Universal Music, the owner of the common-law copyright of DiMucci’s recording, it said. DiMucci “authored” the song in 1961 for now-defunct Laurie Records, said the complaint, though songwriting credits for "The Wanderer" actually belong to Ernie Maresca. Amazon, Microsoft and Sony didn’t comment Friday.

Sony Interactive Entertainment is targeting an eBay seller for allegedly distributing “jailbroken” PS4s that play pirated games by “circumventing” copyright protections built into the consoles’ hard drives. Sony agents bought some of the PS4 consoles defendant Eric Scales sells under the eBay handle “blackcloak13" and "confirmed" they were “modified to enable the user to access and run certain ‘exploit’ software code that, when run on the PS4, circumvents technological protection measures,” said the complaint (in Pacer), filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Riverside, California. It seeks a Digital Millennium Copyright Act order permanently barring Scales from distributing the jailbroken PS4s. Scales also runs a website that advertises availability of jailbroken PS4s on eBay, said the complaint. We couldn't reach him for comment.

A 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel won't rehear Digital Satellite Connections' appeal of a lower court summary judgment in a trademark and breach of contract fight between DSC and Dish Network, said a docket 17-1110 order (in Pacer) Tuesday. The 10th Circuit in August upheld a lower court's summary judgment award to Dish Network on that company's breach-of-contract counterclaim. DSC sued, and Dish countersued, over use of the name "Dishnet" (see 1801080004).

AT&T doesn't strongly defend the U.S. District Court's logic that let it buy Time Warner, but focuses on "musing footnotes and phrases as if they were holdings," DOJ said in a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reply brief Thursday (docket 18-5214) responding to the acquirer's appellee brief (see 1809200039). It said AT&T doesn't address the lower court's inconsistencies in rejecting bargaining principles accepted by economists. Justice said the court insisted on an unreasonably high degree of certainty in DOJ economic modeling and its finding of zero harm to be unsupportable, making remand "unavoidable." AT&T didn't comment.

The FTC banned a marketing group behind a “get-rich-with-Amazon” scheme from marketing and other business-related transactions, the agency announced in a $63.5 million settlement Thursday. The deal requires Jeffrey Gomez, Adams Consulting and Global Marketing Services to surrender $63.5 million, “which will be partially suspended when Gomez surrenders approximately $2.55 million in funds and assets.” Defendants falsely claimed their “Amazing Wealth System” would deliver profitable online business through Amazon sales, the agency said. Most customers “lost significant amounts of money” and many were suspended from the platform, the agency said. An attorney for the defendants didn’t comment.

The Supreme Court will hold oral argument in Apple v. Robert Pepper, docket 17-204, on Nov. 26, the high court announced this week (see 1810020047). Apple appealed a class-action antitrust lawsuit alleging it monopolized distribution of App Store applications.