3 Count: Righthaven Support

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1: Book, Record Industries Attack Righthaven Fair Use Ruling

First off today, the Association of American Publishers and the Recording Industry Association of America both filed amicus briefs with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in one of Righthaven’s lawsuits. Righthaven, which sued nearly 300 bloggers and webmasters over alleged infringement of content from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post, has had their campaign on hold in recent weeks due to a string of legal defeats. However, the associations aren’t filing briefs in hope of reviving the lawsuits, rather, they are addressing a narrow fair use issue in one of the cases, a ruling that, according to them, could be disastrous for copyright holders. Neither brief addresses the issue of Righthaven’s position to use, the grounds on which it lost the case.

2: Ad Network Not Guilty of Copyright Infringement For Serving Pirate Site

Next up today, the ad network Chitika has come out victorious in a lawsuit that pitted them against publishers Elsevier and John Wiley & Sons. The publishers had claimed that Chitika, which was running ads on Pharmatext, a site that previously offered pirated ebooks. However, according to several industry experts, including attorney Eric Goldman, the ruling leaves the door open for services like Chitika to lose similar fights if copyright holders notify them of the infringement first. If the publishers could have shown that Chitika was aware of the infringement, the result could have been very different and that, in turn, may pave the way for a “notice and takedown” system for ad networks similar to what is proposed in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

3: Celeb Photo Agency Sues Gossip Site

Finally today, celebrity photo agency Mavrix has filed a lawsuit against Idontlikeyouinthatway.com as well as related companies CraveOnline Media and AtomicOnline claiming that the site is has unlawfully used photos from the service on “numerous occasions”. The lawsuit is seeking some $3 million in damages as well as an injunction barring the site from using any more of their photos in the future. According to the lawsuit, Mavrix has licensed images for as much as $100,000 a piece, opening the door also to high actual damages as well as statutory ones.

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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