3 Count: Speed Trap

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: Pirate Bay-trio to sue Dutch copyright group

First off today, The Pirate Bay, has launched something of a counter-offensive by announcing its plans to file a slander lawsuit against the Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN.

Though it isn’t exactly clear what The Pirate Bay is saying was defamatory about any of BREIN’s remarks, this does follow a lawsuit by BREIN against The Pirate Bay. That lawsuit has also been amended to include Global Gaming Factory, the company attempting to purchase The Pirate Bay, even though the sale is not final and the company plans to relaunch the site as a legal service.

The case is already a bit of circus as it saw BREIN actually serve the trial via Twitter saying they could not find any other viable contact information for them. Furthermore, since The Pirate Bay admins are located in Sweden and the lawsuit in the Netherlands, it is unclear how this will work.

Needless to say, this will be an ongoing case for some time.

2: Amazon CEO apologizes for Kindle book deletions

Next up, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, has issued a written apology to all of the Kindle users who had their copies of “1984” and “Animal Farm” removed from their devices. In the letter, he states that, “Our ‘solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.”

The problem Bezos is referring to is that the publisher of the books did not have permission to make them available via the Kindle when they did so, meaning that the works were essentially copyright infringements. Amazon responded by removing the books from the Kindles they had been purchased for and issued refunds.

Bezos went on to say that, “We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.” I guess we will have to wait and see what that means.

3: UK Council Considers Speed Camera Photos Copyrighted

Finally today, the East Sussex County Council in the UK is stating that photographs taken from speed cameras are copyright of the police department and is demanding that at least one site remove the infringing works.

The photographs in question were involved in a court case where a cyclist was ticketed for speeding but later found to be not guilty due to errors in the radar device. A site in turn published those images only to receive the cease and desist letter from the council, which said further actions may be considered if the images are not removed.

The site, which is linked above, has not yet removed the image.

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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