3 Count: William Tell

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

1: Chinese Authors Sue Apple for Copyright Infringement

First off today, a group of nine Chinese authors have reportedly filed suit against Apple for some 11.9 million yuan ($1.9 million) over allegedly infringing books in the iTunes App Store. According to the authors, they have tried to work with Apple to get the infringing books removed with no luck. The same group of authors has also taken on the Chinese search engine Baidu and Google over similar issues.

2: Leader of NinjaVideo.Net Website Sentenced to 22 Months in Prison for Criminal Copyright Conspiracy

Next up today, Hana Amal Beshara, one of the co-founders of the site NinjaVideo, has been sentenced to 22 months in prison, two years supervised release and 500 hours of community service as part of her plea deal in the case. Beshara was one of the founders and leaders of the site, which serviced as a haven for a variety of pirated video content and was open from 2008 until it was closed in 2010 by the government. Three other defendants have also been arrested and have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Another, located in Greece, still has not been arrested.

3: Is It About to Get Much Easier for Artists to Bring Copyright-Infringement Lawsuits?

Finally today, The U.S. Copyright Office is accepting public comment on the idea of setting up a small claims court for smaller copyright matters. Currently, all copyright issues in the U.S. have to go through Federal court, regardless of size and money involved, and this leads to a great deal of expense that often isn’t able to be recouped. The idea of a small claims court would be to remove attorneys from the matter and make the litigation process cheaper, lowering the cost of both filing and defending such lawsuits. The public comment period ends January 16.

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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Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 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.

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