Tag: lawsuit

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Victory for Tolkien’s estate against a “fan fiction” author

The Tolkien estate, as well as Amazon, have scored victories with recent judgments obtained against Demetrious Polychron, a “fan fiction” author, having published a sequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy!

The legal battle began after US-based Demetrious Polychron published a book entitled The Fellowship of the King, in which he claimed it was a sequel to the famous saga…

He then sued Amazon and the Tolkien estate, claiming that the Prime Video series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, had copied his literary work and infringed his copyright!

Can you believe it?

The lawsuit was dismissed by a California judge.

PrimeVideo

According to the judge, Polychron’s claims were unreasonable and frivolous from the outset.

Tolkien’s estate asserted its rights and took legal action against the author, winning the legal battle.

WennCover

The “fan fiction” author was therefore forced by the court to pay the legal fees of Tolkien’s estate and Amazon, in addition to having to destroy any physical or digital copies of his book.

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter employees sue over mass layoffs

Twitter employees filed a class-action lawsuit against the company over new owner Elon Musk’s plan to cut roughly half of the company’s workforce starting Friday, arguing it violates U.S. federal and California state law.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in a San Francisco federal court, asks the court to issue an order requiring Twitter to obey the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. The act restricts companies from performing mass layoffs without at least 60 days of advanced notice. It also seeks to restrict Twitter from soliciting employees to sign documents that could give up their right to participate in litigation.

Since Musk took over Twitter, the company has been in turmoil. Workers were assigned to Musk projects and forced to work long hours and weekends under threat of being fired if they didn’t meet tight deadlines. At the same time, team leaders were asked to draw up lists of employees that could be cut. A letter sent to employees on November 3rd warned them that they would receive an email by 9am PST/12pm ET on November 4th about their future at the company.

However, some employees have already started losing access to internal systems like email and Slack channels. That includes some of those assigned to Musk projects. Other employees took to Twitter to share updates about their status or post support under the hashtag ‘#OneTeam.’

“We filed this lawsuit tonight in an attempt the make sure that employees are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights,” attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan told Bloomberg. Liss-Riordan filed the lawsuit against Twitter, but was also behind a lawsuit against Tesla, another Musk company, for laying off about 10 percent of its workforce in June.

However, Tesla won a ruling from a federal judge in Austin, Texas, that forced the workers to pursue their claims in closed-door arbitration rather than in open court. Musk called the lawsuit “trivial” during an interview.

“We will now see if he is going to continue to thumb his nose at the laws of this country that protect employees. It appears that he’s repeating the same playbook of what he did at Tesla,” Liss-Riordan said.

Musk’s Twitter cuts are part of an ongoing effort to reduce costs and squeeze profit from the social network after his acquisition saddled the company with some $13 billion USD (about $17.6 billion CAD) of debt. Musk’s other plans include increasing the cost of Twitter Blue to $8/mo USD, making verification a paid feature, and adding paywalled video.

The latest news on Twitter and Musk can be found here.

Source: Bloomberg

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Mobile Syrup

Tesla faces proposed class action lawsuit in the U.S.

Tesla is facing a proposed class action lawsuit over a phantom braking problem.

The California-based Tesla Model 3 owner who filed the suit states the problem causes vehicles to abruptly stop without any obstacles in their way and is a “nightmare,” according to Reuters.

The complainant, Jose Alvarez Toledo, states the automaker rushed its vehicles to market with technology that isn’t safe.

“When the sudden unintended braking defect occurs, they turn what is supposed to be a safety feature into a frightening and dangerous nightmare,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit, which covers U.S. Tesla owners facing the same issue, also states Tesla didn’t disclose safety risks related to Autopilot.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Reuters

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Mobile Syrup

Credit card processing fees are coming for more than just your phone bill

Source: Shutterstock https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/online-credit-card-payment-purchases-stores-1722681316

Last week, MobileSyrup reported on a Telus CRTC filing requesting permission to add a credit card processing fee to customer bills. Understandably, people were upset, and the CRTC file has received tons of comments from Canadians upset about the prospect of once again paying more for their monthly cell phone bill.

However, Telus’ proposed credit card processing fee hinges on the result of a lawsuit against credit card companies over these same fees. The thing is, the result of this lawsuit may affect much more than your Telus bill — here’s what’s happening and what to watch out for to avoid paying extra credit card fees this fall.

The lawsuit

In its filing to the CRTC, Telus cited a 2018 lawsuit against credit card companies as the reason for it wanting to add credit card processing fees. However, the filing itself was somewhat vague about the details.

I ended up doing more digging than expected to try and learn about this lawsuit. Overall, I’ve found a few different articles that seem to reference it, although some of the dates and information differs from article to article. For example, this CBC News story seems to match up to everything Telus said in its filing but notes the lawsuit was launched in 2011, not 2018. Below I’ve linked a few articles that seem to concern this lawsuit, or similar lawsuits:

The more important information, however, is the result of the settlement. Credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard charge what are called interchange fees to businesses. These fees can range anywhere from one to three percent, depending on the card and its associated rewards (cash back, loyalty points, etc.). Interchange fees can, understandably, get quite expensive for businesses — especially with the increase in online purchases during the pandemic. Plus, with the increased prevalence of credit cards, there were more fees, and more fees meant higher costs for businesses.

As a result, the settlement did two things: first, it enabled businesses to claim a rebate for some of the fees paid between 2001 and 2021, and second, it gave businesses the ability to pass on credit card fees to customers. As an aside, some coverage noted credit card companies had rules preventing businesses from doing this before and that the lawsuit prevents these types of rules, but that wasn’t reflected in the CBC News coverage.

Anyway, the main takeaway here is that businesses that accept credit cards can also add a surcharge to cover the cost of related fees for accepting said credit card.

The new rules start in October

Starting in October (October 6th, according to Telus’ CRTC filing), these new surcharge rules come into place. However, it remains unclear which businesses plan to do this.

CBC News paints the fees as something of a trap for small- and medium-sized businesses, who might need the surcharge most but could stand to lose more business by charging the fees (put another way, if two stores sell the same product for the same price, but one has a credit card surcharge, which store are you going to buy from?).

The publication also suggests that small- and medium-sized businesses pay higher fees than large businesses, likely because big businesses have much more negotiating power with credit card companies and banks. Moreover, the federal government has reportedly pledged to lower credit card fees for small businesses but hasn’t actually done this yet.

What to watch for in October

Come October, Canadians will want to keep a close eye on their spending if they want to avoid paying additional credit card fees. The easiest solution? Switch to debit or cash to avoid extra fees.

Unfortunately, that’s not a great solution for everyone, especially when it comes to purchases that may be at higher risk of fraud. Debit cards often have less fraud protection than credit cards, which is particularly troublesome since debit cards are also tied to bank accounts. Look no further than MobileSyrup’s own Patrick O’Rourke, who had a difficult time recouping the over $2,000 defrauded from him after his debit card information was stolen from the McDonald’s app.

If you have (or want) to keep using your credit card, you may have to watch for processing fees. In most cases, hopefully, those will be disclosed before payment. An example of this is, coincidentally, Telus. Despite the obvious issues with Telus passing on credit card fees to customers, the carrier promised to warn customers about the change in the filing — and arguably, the wide coverage of the filing further spread the news.

With that in mind, keep an eye out for emails from companies you use a credit card with, as this will likely be the main way any business warns users of fees. Moreover, always check your bills for notices about new fees (especially phone and internet bills!) since sometimes companies will add that information to a bill warning about a change in the next bill.

Image credit: Shutterstock

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Cottage Life

Plastic producers launch lawsuit to reverse Canada’s ban on single-use plastics

Photo by Shutterstock/Mr.anaked

Thirty-three plastic-producing companies have banded together to fight the Canadian government’s decision to ban certain single-use plastics. On July 15, the group, known as the Responsible Plastic Use Coalition (RPUC), filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government, asking the federal courts to repeal the ban.

Canada’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos published the ban’s final regulations in June. The regulations target checkout bags, cutlery, takeout containers, stir sticks, straws, and six-pack rings.

Starting December 2022, manufacturing and importing these plastics will be banned. Businesses will have until December 2023 to deplete their stocks. After that, it will be prohibited to sell the items. And the government has said it will ban the exporting of these plastics by the end of 2025.

What RPUC takes issue with is that under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) plastic pollution is now considered “toxic”.

“The federal government designated all plastic manufactured items as toxic, a designation we believe is not only inaccurate but could have far-reaching and unintended consequences. Canadians rely on plastic to sustain everyday life—from eyeglasses to diapers, to water piping, to computers, phones, and baby bottles,” the coalition wrote on its website. “We believe there are far more impactful policy solutions to divert waste from our natural environment.”

RPUC did not respond to comment when asked to elaborate on its alternative policy solutions.

When asked about the lawsuit by Cottage Life, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said over email: “Recently, a group of plastic companies filed another lawsuit against the Government of Canada, this time to try and stop the government’s ban on harmful single-use plastics. That’s their choice. Our choice is to stay focused on fighting plastic pollution and on fighting for our environment. And we’re confident the courts will agree with our position.”

The decision to label plastic pollution as toxic came after the government published a scientific assessment in 2020, concluding that “the improper management of plastic waste has led to plastics becoming ubiquitous in all major compartments of the environment.”

The assessment went on to say that plastic pollution has been detected on shorelines, and in surface waters, sediment, groundwater, soil, indoor and outdoor air, food, and drinking water. Approximately one per cent of plastic waste enters the environment each year. That was the equivalent of 29,000 tonnes of plastic in 2016. And since plastic degrades slowly, the amount of plastic pollution found in the environment increases over time.

This poses a serious risk to animals that ingest or become entangled in the plastic, often dying as a result. Ingestion can also impact the health of humans.

According to the federal government, 15 billion plastic checkout bags are used every year and approximately 16 million straws are used daily. By introducing a ban on these items, the government estimates that over the next decade it will eliminate 1.3 million tonnes of hard-to-recycle plastic waste and 22,000 tonnes of plastic pollution.

This is a step in the right direction, but more work needs to be done, said Karen Wirsig, the plastics program manager for the environmental advocacy group Environmental Defence, in a statement.

“Banning these plastics is the most effective way to solve the problem. Leading countries on every continent are implementing bans on plastics, so it’s good to see Canada keeping its promise to roll out bans here. But this is only the first of many steps the government must take to reach its goal of zero plastic waste by 2030. We’ll be looking for additional bans to address more single-use plastics that continue to plague the environment, as well as measures to ensure reuse and refill options are widely available,” she said.

Wirsig also commented on RPUC’s lawsuit, claiming that Environmental Defence was appalled by the coalition’s actions. “The plastics industry insists that better waste collection and recycling are the answer but after years of failed recycling efforts, it’s never been more obvious that plastic pollution is not a waste management problem. These bans are the first clear sign that making and using less plastic is not only possible, but doable and necessary.”

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Mobile Syrup

Google files lawsuits against Sonos over alleged patent infringement

Google launched new lawsuits against Sonos, claiming the company violated several of its smart speaker patents in the latest bout of a long-running legal spat.

So far, Sonos has sued Google multiple times, and Google has sued Sonos once in return — this marks the second suit from Google. Moreover, one ruling has been handed down so far in favour of Sonos, which led to Google removing the ability for users to simultaneously control the volume of a group of Google speakers with their phones.

According to The Verge, the latest lawsuits from Google allege Sonos infringed on seven additional patents. One of the lawsuits focuses on hotword detection and wireless charging — hotword detection refers to a speaker’s ability to wake up and respond to a user query after they say a specific word or phrase. The other lawsuit is about how a group of speakers determines which one should respond to a voice input.

Google filed both lawsuits this morning in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Moreover, the search giant plans to launch similar lawsuits with the U.S. International Trade Commission — the lawsuits will seek a ban on imports of Sonos products that allegedly infringe on the patents.

Google spokesperson José Castañeda told The Verge that Google filed the lawsuits to “defend [its] technology and challenge Sonos’s clear, continued infringement of [its] patents.” Moreover, Castañeda accused Sonos of starting an “aggressive and misleading campaign” against Google products.

However, Sonos fired back in its own statement to The Verge, calling the lawsuits an “intimidation tactic” and accusing Google of suing in retaliation against Sonos “for speaking out against Google’s monopolistic practices.”

Source: The Verge

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Class-action lawsuit filed against Rogers over July 8th outage

Quebec resident Arnaud Verdier launched a class-action lawsuit against Rogers over the company’s massive, nationwide outage, which took down internet and wireless networks, disrupting emergency capabilities, financial services and government services on July 8th.

The outage lasted for almost the entire day. Rogers claimed it restored services for the “majority” of customers on the morning of July 9th, but issues continued for many through the weekend.

As reported by CTV News Montreal, the lawsuit was filed by law firm LPC Avocat Inc. in Superior Court on Monday in Montreal. The suit seeks $400 for members who are Rogers customers affected by the network failure, as well as for flanker-brand customers like Fido and Chatr. Although not indicated by CTV News, the lawsuit arguably should include customers of wholesale ISPs that run on Rogers’ network as well. The lawsuit does seek compensation for non-Rogers customers who could not complete debit transactions or e-transfers due to the outage taking down Interac’s payment network.

The $400 comes from two sources — $200 per member for failing to provide service, and the other $200 for Rogers’ “false representations” about having the most reliable network. Exhibits filed with the lawsuit show that Rogers allegedly instructed employees to remove advertising material with the phrase “Get on Canada’s most Reliable 5G Network” from stores on the day of the outage.

On July 9th, Rogers president and CEO Tony Staffieri released a statement attributing the outage to a botched maintenance update. In the filing, Verdier says Rogers should have tested the update before deploying it through an IT process called “staging.” The suit also accuses Rogers of deploying the update without a “rollback,” saying the outage “can only be qualified as a gross negligence on the part of Rogers.”

CTV News says Verdier filed the lawsuit because he believes Rogers’ promise of two days’ worth of credit is “wholly inadequate” for the damage suffered.

Source: CTV News Montreal

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Mobile Syrup

Elon Musk to cut Tesla’s workforce by 3.5 percent

Tesla CEO Elon Musk plans to cut Tesla’s workforce by 3.5 percent.

Musk confirmed the number during an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the Qatar Economic Forum on June 21st. Over the next three months, Tesla will cut about 10 percent of its salaried workforce but expects to grow hourly staff, leading to an overall 3.5 percent workforce reduction.

Bloomberg notes that Tesla hired rapidly while building new factories in Austin, Texas and Berlin, Germany. The company has roughly 100,000 employees globally. The cuts have affected human resources representatives and software engineers.

The cuts reportedly took many by surprise, with the company terminating several employees immediately, according to Bloomberg. Two workers at Tesla’s Reno, Nevada battery factory alleged in a lawsuit that the company didn’t comply with the 60-day notification required by the States’ ‘Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.’

“Let’s not read too much into a preemptive lawsuit that has no standing,” Musk deflected when asked about the lawsuit during the interview.

The Tesla staff reductions come amid Musk’s stance against remote work. Musk has publicly derided work-from-home, and in an email cited by Bloomberg, wrote that Tesla employees are “required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week.”

Further, Musk claimed in the email that that was why he had “lived in the factory so much — so that those on the line could see me working alongside them.” Musk said if he hadn’t done that, Tesla would have gone bankrupt “long ago.”

Musk’s position on remote work similarly has Twitter employees spooked amid his ongoing attempt to purchase the company. Coupled with Musk’s suggestion there may be layoffs at Twitter if he acquires the company, it’s understandable that people are worried.

Source: Bloomberg

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Mobile Syrup

Texas couple files lawsuit against Apple, claiming AirPods damaged son’s hearing

A Texas couple has filed a lawsuit against Apple over its AirPods.

According to Carlos Gordoa and Ariani Reyes of San Antonio, Apple’s wireless earbuds emitted a sound so loud it damaged the hearing of their 14-year-old son B.G.

The lawsuit was first filed in 2020 by the San Antonio couple, according to NBC News. Gordoa and Reyes claim that while using a pair of AirPods when watching Netflix, an Amber Alert came through. The sound was supposedly so loud that it resulted in permanent hearing loss for the boy.

The couple claims that their son was watching Netflix at a reasonably “low volume” prior to the alert. However, when the Amber Alert went off suddenly, the volume increased to such a degree that it caused damage. Gordoa and Reyes state that one of their son’s eardrums was torn. Due to this, their son now needs to wear a hearing aid for the rest of his life.

The AirPods do not automatically reduce, control, limit, or increment notification or alert volumes to a safe level that causes them to emit,” the suit states. It continues and says Apple should include a warning to adjust volume levels prior to an alert. The lawsuit also claims that Apple knew or should be held responsible for such oversight of its AirPods.

The lawsuit also brings in additional examples of Apple customers complaining about sudden alerts. One user, who wrote on Apple’s community forum, claims that AirPod notifications are “extremely loud” while calls, music, etc. are normal. A Reddit user has also complained about the lack of consistency when using AirPods.

Apple has yet to issue a response to the lawsuit or address the AirPods issue through a software update.

Source NBC News Via: iPhone in Canada

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Freedom Mobile dealers sue company for alleged losses

A group of independent Freedom Mobile franchise dealers have filed three lawsuits against the company.

The dealers have been “negatively and severely impacted by Freedom’s programming and compensation plans effecting the network,” a press release outlining the lawsuits states.

“The lawsuits seek damages for each of the dealers representing the alleged losses they have suffered as a result of Freedom’s operation of their various channels of distribution and in the compensation paid to the dealers.”

The negative impact started in early 2020 and increased following Rogers’ announcement to acquire Shaw.

The lawsuits were filed on behalf of the Association of F-Branded Wireless Dealers. The group represents 22 independent franchised dealers and dealer groups. They collectively operate 180 stores in Ontario and Alberta.

Rogers is currently in the process of selling off Freedom Mobile.

“Although the Freedom dealers do not know the future of the Freedom brand as a result of the uncertainty as to who will in fact acquire the assets of Freedom Mobile, the dealers remain hopeful that they will once again have the opportunity to remain a strong force in the marketplace for the benefit of many Canadians,” the press release states.

Source: Sotos LLP