3 Count: Un-Grooveshark

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1: Lawsuit Claims Grooveshark Workers Posted 100,000 Pirated Songs

First off today, Universal Music has filed a second lawsuit against Grooveshark, the music streaming service that has users upload tracks for others to listen to. According to the lawsuit, during their discovery in their first, still ongoing, lawsuit, they claim to have found evidence that points to Universal tracks being uploaded by employees of Escape Media Group, Grooveshark’s parent company. This includes Grooveshark’s CEO, Samuel Tarantino as well as Benjamin Westermann-Clark and Paul Geller, both VPs, who are accused of uploading 1,000s of tracks each. Grooveshark, in the first lawsuit, claimed that it is not liable for infringement due to DMCA safe harbor protections, however, if the tracks were uploaded by their employees, those protections would disappear and open Grooveshark up to massive damages. Universal is seeking an injunction against Grooveshark which, if granted, would likely shut the service down.

2: Publisher Drops Copyright Claim, Favors Fair Use

Next up today, Righthaven, the company that has been suing site owners for allegedly reposting content from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post, has conceded its case against Democratic Underground. The site, which had posted a small excerpt of a news article from the Review-Journal, was sued by Righthaven and initially won on the grounds that Righthaven didn’t hold rights to the content it was suing for. However, Democratic Underground countersued Righthaven claiming that the use was a fair one to start with and now Righthaven has conceded that point, likely paving the way for similar outcomes in other Righthaven lawsuits.

3: Game Developers Sue China’s Baidu Over Copyright

Finally today, in China, the Content Provider Union (CPU) has filed suit against Baidu, the country’s most popular search engine, claiming that it provides unauthorized downloads for some 350 games for mobile devices. The lawsuit is seeking some 30 million yuan ($4.7 million) in damages. Baidu says that they did not upload the games and they comply with the law in China.

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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