3 Count: Wrongly Levied

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1: Canadian Copyright Group Pushes for Levy on Memory Cards

First off today, hot on the heels of a failed attempt to pass an “iPod tax” there is now pressure on the Canadian government to pass a similar tax on memory cards. The new levy, if passed, would add fifty cents to all memory cards below 1 GB in size, $1 to any card between 1 and 8 GB and $3 or more to the price of any card bigger than 8 GB. The group the Canadian Private Copying Collective is spurring the initiative, which is bound to draw criticism, especially due to the broad uses of memory cards.

2: Verdict for Insurer Graham in Copyright Case Upheld

Next up today, an ongoing lawsuit between Insurer The Graham Co. against rival USI Midatlantic Inc. has come to a head as an Appeals Court has upheld a $18.9 million award for the company. According to Graham, a former employee, Thomas Haughey, left the company and took critical manuals with him. When he got to his new position at a predecessor company of USI, he then distributed the manuals to the employees there. The court upheld a previous jury award, which included a $2.29 million judgment against Haughey himself, saying that since Graham was unaware of the infringement, the statute of limitations had not expired on the case and the original verdicts were not excessive. USI said that it plans to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

3: Climate Study Gets Pulled After Charges of Plagiarism

Finally today, a controversial climate change study by Edward Wegman of George Mason University is being retracted by the journal that printed it on the grounds of plagiarism. The journal Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, which published the study in 2008, has retracted the study after discovering that parts of it were lifted from Wikipedia and various textbooks. Attorneys for Wegman and study co-author Yasmin Said claimed the two never committed plagiarism but, instead, blamed the matter on a student who copied and pasted work. The study, which denied the existence of man-made climate change, has been controversial since its release.

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.

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