AT&T has settled a class action lawsuit today that will mean that the carrier must unlock all phones locked to their network as long as customers meet a certain set of criteria.
Users of pre-paid phones must “provide proof of purchase of their locked handset,” while any contracted user must have “completed a minimum of 90 days of active service,” with the account remaining in good standing.
There is one caveat, however: “Handsets for which AT&T has an exclusive sales arrangement with a manufacturer of less than 10 months will have to wait until the 10-month period expires before they can receive an unlocking code.”
That means that any phone for which AT&T has an exclusivity pact of over 10 months (namely the Apple iPhone and BlackBerry Bold 9000), then it does not have to issue an unlock code.
The final approval hearing for the settlement is on July 2nd. You can find more information at www.attlockinglawsuits.com.
Result for: lawsuits
In April we reported that the U.S. Copyright Group had filed lawsuits against 50,000 pirates, each alleged of downloading a number of films including “Steam Experiment,” “Far Cry,” “Uncross the Stars,” “Gray Man” and “Call of the Wild 3D.”
The Group has now demanded that Time Warner Cable, one of the largest ISPs in the U.S., hand over the identity of 2000 alleged pirates, and Time Warner has declined, saying it is too expensive, and “exceeds their current staffing capabilities.”
The ISP says it would cost them about $45 USD each to send out the info on all the requests.
“Time Warner Cable does not have enough employees to respond to these requests. In a typical month, the company receives an average of 567 IP lookup requests, nearly all of them coming from law enforcement. These lookup requests involve everything from suicide threats to child abduction to terrorist activity,” each of which takes “immediate priority” over copyright infringement cases.
The ISP’s Subpoena Compliance team is currently only a five-man team and in addition to the “priority” requests, they can handle 28 non-critical subpoenas per month. The U.S. Copyright Group has so far asked for 809, just this month.
Result for: lawsuits
UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) president Dana White has said today that the sport is preparing to sue individuals and websites that offer the MMA content illegally.
The UFC made about $350 million in PPV revenue in 2009, but many websites have been streaming the UFC PPV events for free online, while they are playing live.
UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta said his anti-piracy group had found 271 illegal streams of the UFC 106 event, with a total of 140,000 viewers.
“The piracy of live sporting events is illegal, it kills jobs, and it threatens the expansion of U.S. based companies,” Fertitta added. “The UFC is potentially losing millions of dollars a year from piracy.”
White, clearly extremely angered by pirates, says the company has been considering the legal actions since 2007 but will take the leap this year due to heavier “losses.”
“It’s going to be a battle, man,” White says, via MMAJ. “It’s going to be a battle, but I’m ready to {censored} fight.We’re gonna go after them, we’re gonna go after them hard, and we’re gonna hurt them.”
White readily admits however that the lawsuits will cost the MMA far more money then the piracy is “costing them.”
“[Piracy] hasn’t cost us anything compared to what it’s going to cost us to go after these guys. It’s gonna cost us a lot of money, but guess what — it’s gonna cost them a lot of money. It’s gonna get to the point where it’s like, you know what, [expletive] it, maybe we shouldn’t pirate MMA any more. You got these websites like Justin.tv, and they pirate all kinds of things. They play all kinds of [expletive] on there. Well, we’re gonna make it where it’s not worth it to put UFC events up on the website,” he says.
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