U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga in Alexandria, Virginia, ordered the freezing of accounts of virtual private network (VPN) operator VeePN, in a temporary restraining order Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-741). The TRO was sought by movie production companies suing various alleged pirates and data center DataCamp, to which the alleged pirates subscribe, said the order. The content companies say VeePN is also a DataCamp subscriber and a distributor of the Popcorn Time video piracy app. Trenga ordered Panama's VeePN cease marketing itself as a Popcorn Time VPN or using the Popcorn Time app on its websites. VeePN didn't comment Friday.

Cable and satellite TV customers spend $1,600 a year on unwatched TV channels, up more than $500 from 2019, said a Wednesday CordCutting.com study. The average pay-TV customer has access to 190 channels but regularly watches only 15, vs. 11 in 2019, which averages out to $9.57 per channel watched, it said. About 80% of cable/satellite users watch five or more channels; 47% watch 10 or more; 24% watch 20-plus and 13% watch 30 or more, it said. The average cable TV monthly bill has risen 52% in the past three years from $96 to $147, it said. Cordcutting.com noted channels such as ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC are available for free without a cable or satellite package. About 37% of cable/satellite TV subscribers find good value in their subscription; 45% would cancel if it weren’t tied to their internet service, it said. Over two-thirds of millennials and Generation Z cable or satellite TV users also pay for a streaming service vs. 57% of Gen X and 44% of baby boomers, the study said. The study of 507 people in the U.S. who paid for cable or satellite service was fielded in May. The percentage of Americans watching cable or satellite TV dropped by over 20 points from 2015 to 2021, with another 4.7 million households cutting the cord last year alone, said Managing Editor Stephen Lovely.

Netflix picked Microsoft as its “global advertising technology and sales partner,” as it works to launch the ad-supported streaming tier it announced in April (see 2204200002), blogged Chief Operating and Product Officer Greg Peters Wednesday. “Microsoft has the proven ability to support all our advertising needs as we work together to build a new ad-supported offering,” said Peters. “It’s very early days and we have much to work through,” but the long-term goal is “more choice for consumers and a premium, better-than-linear TV brand experience for advertisers,” said Peters. Terms of the arrangement with Microsoft weren’t disclosed. Netflix reports Q2 results Tuesday.

Livestreaming of events is rapidly becoming the cornerstone of sportscasting, Intertrust said Tuesday. A broad majority of fans watching on traditional TV channels want to move to livestreamed viewing, which enables such features as watch parties and enhanced viewing via virtual reality, it said. Broadcast TV sports programming has been a breakwall against what might otherwise be a more serious decline in legacy TV viewership, it said. Over-the-top ad revenue is starting to rival subscription revenue, it said.

Oral argument will be Sept. 19 in San Francisco in the Reno, Nevada, appeal of a lower court's rejection of the city's suit seeking franchise fees from Hulu and Netflix (see 2202080088), the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a docket notation filed Sunday (docket 21-16560).

Streaming video pirate site Israel.TV must pay Israeli video content companies $7.65 million in statutory damages plus legal fees and costs, per a default judgment order Wednesday (docket 1:21-cv-11024) in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The order said Israel.TV never responded or otherwise appeared in the suit. The order said if the plaintiffs find any newly created domains operated by the defendant, the order's permanent injunction will be amended to include them. Before seeking relief from content delivery network services provider Cloudflare, the plaintiffs will try to get relief for the identified domains from hosting providers and domain name registries, but after that Cloudflare will cease providing video streaming and content delivery services to those domains, the judgment said. Cloudflare is fighting a contempt charge being sought by the plaintiffs for its alleged role in piracy by its Israel.TV customer (see 2206170029).

DirecTV and people suing it for its telemarketing practices disagree about class certification being sought by the plaintiffs in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) complaint. The plaintiffs told the U.S. District Court in Wheeling, West Virginia, their case is almost identical to litigation brought against Dish Network, with that suit's class action status certified by a unanimous 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel, last week in a reply in support of their class certification motion (docket 5:17-cv-00179). It said issues like "class ascertainability and standing" can be established using the same expert testimony that went through that 4th Circuit decision. DirecTV in its opposition to the class certification motion said the Wheeling court lacks jurisdiction over claims brought by non-West Virginia class members and shouldn't certify a class that includes them. It said the plaintiffs haven't shown that common issues predominate, and determining whether particular calls violated TCPA would require individualized inquiries.

Roku is adding NBC local news channels from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas/Fort Worth, Washington, D.C.; Hartford, Connecticut, and South Florida to The Roku Channel, it announced with NBCUniversal Tuesday. Additional channels will be added to The Roku Channel's Live TV Guide in coming months. The Roku Channel’s Live TV guide has more than 300 linear channels.

MindGeek and its adult video hosting site Pornhub materially contributed to the child sexual abuse materials on the site, and that makes it a content creator not entitled to Communications Decency Act Section 230 protections, plaintiffs told the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Monday. In their opposition (docket 2:21-cv-04920) to MindGeek's motion to dismiss their suit (see 2205240029), the plaintiffs -- all of whom allegedly were juvenile subjects of sex trafficking and abuse videos hosted on the site -- said the MindGeek defendants knowingly benefited from their participation by soliciting, curating, modifying and reuploading illegal content. Counsel for the defendants didn't comment.

Longport and Irvintgon, New Jersey, appealed to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals a lower court's dismissal of their suit seeking franchise fees from Netflix and Hulu under the state's Cable TV Act (see 2205230028) per a notice of appeal Friday (docket 2:21-cv-15303). Counsel for the streamers didn't comment.