Subscription law complexity highlighted by New York Times lawsuit

The New York Times continues to face a 2022 lawsuit claiming it violated North Carolina’s Automatic Renewal Statute, highlighting the difficulties publishers face when attempting to navigate the growing patchwork of state laws regulating subscription businesses across the U.S. U.S. states have stepped up their scrutiny of subscription practices in recent years, specifically around automatic renewal charges and the provision of free trials. As subscription models gain prevalence and the legal requirements for operating them become more complex, experts say they’ve seen a notable increase in litigation targeting violations.  Some states’ auto-renewal laws offer particularly “easy targets” for plaintiff attorneys, experts say, because their disclosure and consent requirem