Tag Archive for: fees

How to get Verizon and AT&T data-cap fees waived during the pandemic

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Illustration of $ 100-dollar bills being sucked into a broadband network.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Aurich Lawson)

Verizon Wireless and AT&T say they’re both waiving mobile-data overage fees to help customers deal with the coronavirus pandemic, but the fees will not be waived automatically. Instead, Verizon and AT&T users have to contact the carriers’ customer service and say they’re experiencing pandemic-related financial hardship to get the fees dropped.

Unlike Verizon and AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint are providing customers unlimited data during the pandemic without requiring them to contact customer service. T-Mobile announced on March 13 that it is upgrading all customers on limited plans to unlimited smartphone data (excluding roaming) for 60 days. Sprint, which is being acquired by T-Mobile, announced the same day that it is doing the same.

Verizon announced its overage-fee-waiver program in a press release Monday and offered details on how it will work in a FAQ:

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Biz & IT – Ars Technica

Judge Shuts Down Copyright Troll’s Cut-And-Run Effort; Hits It With $40K In Legal Fees

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The art of copyright trolling is completely artless. There’s no subtlety to it. Flood federal courts with filings against Does, expedite discovery requests in hopes of subpoenaing a sue-able name from a service provider, shower said person with threats about statutory damages and/or public exposure of their sexual proclivities, secure a quick settlement, and move on.

It doesn’t always work. At the first sign of resistance, trolls often cut and run, dismissing lawsuits as quickly as possible to avoid having to pay the defendant’s legal fees. This isn’t anything new. And there are very few courts left that treat the rinse/repeat cycle as novel. Judges are calling trolls trolls with increasing frequency and more than a few trolls and their legal representation have turned to theft and fraud to make ends meet.

Via Fight Copyright Trolls comes another decision where a porn-based copyright troll is getting its financial ass handed to it by a federal judge. Strike 3 tried to dismiss a lawsuit when it became obvious it couldn’t prove infringement, opting for a voluntary dismissal without prejudice in hopes of dodging a bill for legal fees. It didn’t work.

After some discussion of the technical aspects of Strike 3’s aborted discovery attempt — which involved Strike 3’s experts failing to find evidence of infringement on the defendant’s hard drive — the court gets down to the business of cutting the troll off at the knees to prevent it from escaping the costs of its bogus litigation.

The court [PDF] says Strike 3 can’t have everything it wants — the cake, the celebratory disposable plate, the opportunity to consume the cake at its leisure, etc. Arguing that this is cool because some other troll tried it doesn’t impress Judge Thomas Zilly.

Unlike in LHF Productions, in which an alleged BitTorrent user’s counterclaim for a declaration of non-infringement was dismissed as moot in light of the plaintiff’s dismissal with prejudice of the underlying copyright infringement claim, in this matter, Strike 3’s voluntary dismissal was without prejudice, see Notice (docket no. 53), and in contrast to the plaintiff in Crossbow, Strike 3 has not provided any covenant not to sue. Indeed, not only has Strike 3 preserved its ability to pursue further litigation against John Doe, it has indicated that it will not consent to a declaration of non-infringement unless John Doe is precluded from receiving attorney’s fees and costs and Strike 3 is explicitly permitted to bring copyright infringement claims against John Doe’s son.

Then the court quotes another case involving yet another copyright troll (Malibu Media) to shut down Strike 3’s “heads we win, tails you lose” exit strategy.

In essence, Strike 3 is attempting to thwart John Doe’s efforts to obtain attorney’s fees and costs by, on the one hand, refusing to dismiss its Copyright Act claim with prejudice and thereby denying John Doe “prevailing party” status, while on the other hand, deploying its dismissal without prejudice as a jurisdictional shield against John Doe’s declaratory judgment claim. The Court will not permit Strike 3 to use such “gimmick designed to allow it an easy exit… [now that] discovery [has] reveal[ed] its claims are meritless.”

The court is going to hand the defendant the victory, as well it should. The burden of proof for infringement rests on the accuser and Strike 3 failed to show any infringement occurred. Since Strike 3 can’t prove this — and its attempt to dismiss the case makes it clear it has no intention of proving infringement occurred — the defendant’s declaration of non-infringement is the default winner.

Consistent with Strike 3’s lack of proof of copying, John Doe’s expert has indicated that John Doe’s computer does not contain any of the motion pictures described in Exhibit A to the Complaint. No genuine dispute of material fact exists, and John Doe is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. John Doe’s motion for summary judgment is GRANTED, and a declaratory judgment of non-infringement will be entered.

Since Strike 3 lost — and engaged in a bad faith dismissal to dodge paying Doe’s legal fees — the defendant and his representation are getting almost everything they’ve asked for. That’s $ 40,000 in legal fees and $ 7,000 costs Strike 3 will have to pay for two years’ of failed litigation. But mostly Strike 3 paying because it tried to forfeit rather than take the L.

As the court notes, the tide of trollish litigation may be slowing, thanks to the Ninth Circuit’s Cobbler Nevada decision. It’s not over yet. This isn’t the last time we’ll see a troll light itself on fire in its haste to escape a losing lawsuit. But it’s enjoyable all the same.

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Ajit Pai’s new gift to cable companies would kill local fees and rules

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FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

Enlarge / FCC Chairman Ajit Pai speaking at a press conference on October 1, 2018, in Washington DC. (credit: Getty Images | Mark Wilson )

Ajit Pai is continuing his multi-year battle against local broadband regulation with a plan that would stop cities and towns from using their authority over cable TV networks to regulate Internet access.

Chairman Pai’s proposal, scheduled for a vote at the Federal Communications Commission’s August 1 meeting, would also limit the fees that municipalities can charge cable companies. Cable industry lobbyists have urged the FCC to stop cities and towns from assessing fees on the revenue cable companies make from broadband.

If approved, Pai’s proposal would “Prohibit LFAs [local franchising authorities] from using their video franchising authority to regulate most non-cable services, including broadband Internet service, offered over cable systems by incumbent cable operators.” Pai’s proposal complains that “some states and localities are purporting to assert authority” to collect fees and impose requirements that aren’t explicitly allowed by Title VI, the cable-regulation section that Congress added to communications law with the Cable Act of 1984.

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Biz & IT – Ars Technica

Charter Spectrum Keeps Mindlessly Jacking Up Its Bullshit Fees

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When Charter Communications (Spectrum) proposed merging with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks in 2016, the company repeatedly promised that the amazing “synergies” would lower rates, increase competition, boost employment, and improve the company’s services. Of course like countless telecom megamergers before it, little if any of those promises actually materialized.

Instead, the company quickly set about raising prices to manage the huge debt load. And its service has been so aggressively terrible that the company recently almost got kicked out of New York State, something I’ve never seen in 20 years of covering telecom. All the while, the company continues to not only jack up its standard pricing, but the sneaky fees it uses to advertise one rate, then charge users something else when the bill actually comes due.

We’ve noted for some time how cable providers over the last few years have added a “broadcast TV” fee to customer bills. Such a fee, which simply takes a part of the cost of programming and buries it below the line, lets cable providers advertise one rate, then hit customers with a higher bill. It’s false advertising, but you’d be hard pressed to find a regulator anywhere in North America that gives much of a damn about the practice, be it in telecom, cable TV, the airline sector, or anywhere else. Culturally, American “leadership” appears to view such fees as the pinnacle of capitalistic creativity.

So it just keeps on going. The Los Angeles Times notes that Spectrum is informing its already angry customers that they’ll soon be facing yet another $ 2 monthly hike in the company’s broadcast TV fee, on the heels of another hike just last fall. The fall hike bumped the fee 12% to an additional $ 8.85 per month. This latest hike bumps it another $ 2 (20%) to $ 12 per month. And again, this is just for the cost of programming, something you’re supposed to have already paid for in your base, above the line bill.

All told, the company nets quite a significant profit from this tap dance, notes the Times David Lazarus:

“That 20% fee increase means big bucks for Charter. The company reported Thursday that it had just over 16 million residential pay-TV subscribers as of the fourth quarter of last year.

Hitting up each of them for an extra $ 2.04 a month means Charter, the country’s second-largest cable company, will be raking in an additional $ 391 million in annual revenue, on top of the tens of billions of dollars it already earns.”

Keep in mind, this is a company facing unprecedented competition by cheaper, more flexible streaming alternatives. In a functioning, healthy market, you’d either have competition or moderate regulatory oversight applying some pressure to protect consumers. But telecom, cable, and broadband is far from healthy. It’s a coagulation of natural broadband monopolies that also sell video, but have such entrenched power over state and federal lawmakers (aka regulatory capture), efforts to actually protect consumers from this nonsense wind up being few and far between in most states.

Until we see somebody in a position of regulatory authority actually crack down on this obvious practice of false advertising, it’s pretty clear American leadership’s breathless dedication to things like transparency and consumer protection are just empty lip service. Whether we’re talking about hotel resort fees or the laundry list of annoying airline fees, we’ve culturally embraced the idea that false advertising and nickel-and-diming captive customers is not only ignored but actively encouraged. Somebody wake me up when that changes.

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