3 Count: Pirate Domains

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Bill Would Give Justice Department Power to Shutter Piracy Sites Worldwide

First off today, a new bipartisan bill introduced into Congress seeks to give the Department of Justice the right to close sites it considers to be “pirates” via injunctions to be issued to either the domain’s registrar or the registry for the domain’s TLD, the latter of which are all U.S.-based. Once the injunction was issued, the site involved would return an error if anyone attempted to visit the domain. The act, entitled the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, will likely have a rough road through Congress but is already being applauded by members of the copyright lobbies, including Bob Pisano, the chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America.

2: iviTV Sues Major Media, Claiming Right To Internet TV

Next up today, iviTV, the “cable company” that hopes to stream live TV over the Internet for a monthly fee, all without rebroadcast rights, has sued several major media companies who had served the company with cease and desist letters recently. According to iviTV, as a cable company it doesn’t need republishing rights but, as an Internet-only company, it is not bound by the FCC and doesn’t have to pay the scheduled fees. According to iviTV, the lawsuit is a “a preemptive move to discourage needless litigation from big media.”

3: Stevie Wonder Lobbies UN Over Audiobooks for the Visually Impaired

Finally today, musician Stevie Wonder, in a speech to the World Intellectual Property Organization, pushed for called for unified rules to improve access to audiobooks and text-to-speech conversion of ebooks for the visually impaired. He also promised to come back and play a celebration concert if WIPO took appropriate action in the next twelve months but also threatened to “write a song about what you didn’t do” if they failed to do anything.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will 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.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 6 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.