3 Count: Pirate Victory Party

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: Ahoy! Pirate Party gets berth in European Parliament

First off today, Sweden’s Pirate Party won 7.1% of the vote in the recent EU Parliament elections, approximately 6x the number of votes it won in 2004, and it is enough to secure one, possibly two seats in the EU Parliment next term.

Though the win seems to be someone muted by the sheer numbers, two seats in an body with nearly 800 members is not necessarily a major change, but the fact that a party whose primary platform is copyright reform won any seats is a definite sign of how important copyright is in the mindset of many EU voters.

The question now is what changes will The Pirate Party bring to the EU Parliament, how they will be received by their colleagues and if they will be able to build upon this victory.

2: Lemonheads Leader Sues GM Over Song Use

Next up today, Evan Dando, founder of the Lemonheads, has sued General Motors for copyright infringement saying that the car company used their song “It’s a Shame About Ray” in a commercial for Buicks and Chevrolets. According to Dando, the song was re-recorded without their permission and used in the commercials.

What makes this lawsuit interesting is that GM went into bankruptcy last week and it seems likely that, even if the band is able to win, that the damages they could claim will be greatly reduced, if they are collectable at all.

Needless to say, many are questioning this timing for exactly that reason.

3: The pirates will always win, says Carphone’s Dunstone

Finally today, Charles Dunstone, the head of UK ISP Carphone Warehouse said that the pirates will always win and technological efforts, such as the recent push in the UK to slow suspected pirate’s Internet connection, will end up just being a game of “cat and mouse”.

According to Dunstone, the real solution to the piracy issue is education and services that get content into people’s hands easily and cheaply. Dunstone calls attempts to legislate infringement “naive” and feels that ISPs are just providers of the data, not policemen of the Web.

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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