3 Count: Return to Sender

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1: DHS Abruptly Abandons Copyright Seizure of Hip-Hop Blog

First off today, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has abandoned its litigation against the hip-hop blog DaJaz1.com and has returned the site to its former owner. DHS, along with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized the domain last year claiming it was infringing the copyright of various music labels by posting downloads of unreleased tracks. However, the owner of the site, known as Splash, provided emails showing that all of the tracks were provided by record labels for release. After a year-long legal battle, including many delays by the government, DHS has announced it is dropping the lawsuit and returning the domain. DaJaz1.com is currently back in Splash’s hands with a note that it will be returning soon a video protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act.

2: Alternate Anti-Piracy Bill Released; Hollywood Not Biting

Next up today, the draft legislation proposed by Sen. Wyden and other opponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) may have many fans but the MPAA isn’t among them. The industry group accused the draft legislation of going easy on piracy. The draft would enable copyright holders and the government to petition the International Trade Commission to order advertisers and payment processors to cease doing business with suspected sites. SOPA would give a similar power to the Department of Justice and would also open the door to ordering ISPs to block access to sites dedicated to the purpose of infringing, which has been very controversial in recent months.

3: Vobile Expands Copyright Infringement Technology

Finally today, content identification provider Vobile has announced the launch of its Cloud 9 service, which it hopes will help cyberlockers and other storage systems filter out infringing material before it is posted to their site. Best known for their VideoDNA fingerprinting technology, which is used by movie studios to track copies of their movies, Cloud 9 goes a step farther an matches content uploaded to a database for easy filtering. The service will be used by cyberlocker service Filesonic in hopes to prevent pirated content from being uploaded.

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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