3 Count: isoHunting

This is daily column on Plagiarism Today where the site brings you three of the days biggest, most important copyright and plagiarism news links. If you want to offer your feedback on the column, use the contact form or just follow me on Twitter at @plagiarismtoday.

1: Copyright treaty is classified for ‘national security

First off today, it appears that the Obama administration is continuing the secrecy surrounding the proposed ACTA treaty, marking all but 10 of over 800 pages of information about the treaty as classified.

The Anti-Counterfeiting treaty, which many fear may be an attempt to criminalize file sharing, has been under wraps since negotiations regarding it first started.

User rights groups as well as some Senators known for their support of strong copyright laws have expressed concern that the treaty may be too far reaching, however, not very much about the treaty is known for certain as the law itself has been kept closely guarded, save a few earlier leaks.

2: isoHunt Takes on the CRIA in Court

In other news, bittorrent search engine isoHunt is engaging in a bit of role reversal, dragging Canadian recording industry lobby group the CRIA into a British Columbia court as it seeks a declaratory judgment of non-infringement.

According to Gary Hung, the founder if isoHunt, the judge decided that the issue needed and deserved a full trial saying that, “He just thinks the issues are too complicated and consequences far reaching legally and technically, and a full trial is more appropriate for discovering all documents.”

No word on when the trial is likely to take place.

3: Jennifer Lopez Hit With Copyright Lawsuit

Finally today, in what can be called yet another case of a celebrity being sued over alleged plagiarism, Jennifer Lopez, along with 33 other defendants, are being sued by Sheri Gilbert who claims the mother-in-law character from the movie “Monster-In-Law” is too similar to a character she and her husband created ten years ago.

There is no indication on how Gilbert claims Lopez or the studio got a copy of her work. An attorney representing the defendants said that the character in question can not be defined as unique and has asked the lawsuit to be dismissed.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

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