3 Count: Sarkozy’s Waterloo

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: France Rejects Plan to Curb Internet Piracy

First off today, a week after the unpopular French anti-piracy bill passed the lower house, the French National Assembly today voted today 21-15 against the bill. Of the 577 members of the National Assembly, only 36 showed up, a further sign of how disliked the bill was.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and other supporters of the bill have promised an amended version within the next few weeks, saying that the bill is not necessarily dead. However, I don’t think anyone is going to say that this is less than a severe setback to the bill.

2: Warner Bros. Place Ads To Warn Bollywood Against Ripping-Off Benjamin Button

Warner Brothers has decided to launch something of a pre-emptive strike against India’s Bollywood, which is well known for making localized versions of major U.S. movies, placing advertisements in local newspapers and trade publications warning the studios there not to make their own version of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

This move seems to have been prompted by a movie currently shooting in India entitled Action Replay, which bears some resemblance to Button though the makers of the movie deny even seeing the Warner Brothers movie and point to several differences between the movies.

It is unclear what, if any, action they plan on taking against Action Replay or other movies that may resemble Button.

3: Songwriter retires as head of music rights group

Finally today, after a 15-year stint, Marilyn Bergman is stepping down as the president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), which is a royalty collections and lobbying group that works on behalf of songwriters and other copyright holders.

Bergman will remain on the ASCAP board of directors, which will elect a new president later this month.

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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