3 Count: False Flag

Jonathan BaileyFebruary 14, 2013

2 minutes read

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

1: Feds Urge Supreme Court to Let Stand $222K Landmark File-Sharing Verdict

First off today, David Kravets at Wired reports that the Obama administration, on Monday, filed a petition with the Supreme Court urging it to let stand the $222,000 verdict against file sharer Jammie Thomas-Rasset.

Thomas-Rasset was the subject of a controversial RIAA file sharing lawsuit that, saw her receive a variety of judgments against her for her file sharing, ranging from $222,000 to $1.92 million. Each time the judge reduced the award to $54,000 prompting a retrial on damages until the case finally went to appeal and the original $222,000 award was restored.

Thomas-Rasset is now appealing the case to the Supreme Court and the Obama administration, as it did with the Appeals Court, is urging the court to let the file sharing ruling stand. The Supreme Court has not decided whether it wants to hear the case or not, a decision that is expected soon.

2: DDoS Attacks Take Down What.cd & Major Private BitTorrent Trackers

Next up today, Enigmax at Torrentfreak writes that What.cd, the largest music Bittorrent tracker, and IPTorrents, a popular private tracker, have been shut down due to a DDOS attack.

However, the DDOS attack doesn’t appear to have anything to do with piracy, instead, it appears to becoming from a disgruntled individual who had a public dispute with What.CD over the private tracker not providing him an access.

The user, who goes by the name Zeiko Anonymous, tweeted about the various sites he targeted with the hashtag #killpiracy. He had launched a similar attack back in November. Other sites were also targeted in the DDOS attack but appear to have recovered.

3: Anti-Piracy Group Faces Lawsuit for Copying Pirate Bay Site Design

Finally today, Philippa Warr at Wired UK reports that the Finnish anti-piracy group Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre (CIAPC) has been threatened with legal action by The Pirate Bay.

At issue is the organizations anti-piracy campaign that features a copy of The Pirate Bay’s site with the logo changed to that of a ship sinking and all links pointing to legal sites for downloads. However, in the process of creating the parody site, CIAPC copied the CSS and other code from The Pirate Bay, prompting the notorious Bittorrent tracker to threaten litigation,

According to The Pirate Bay, the use of their code violates their usage policy, which states that the site’s content can’t be used by organizations without permission. Though the statement is meant to be humorous, The Pirate bay did try to make a serious point saying that if such organizations can’t respect copyright, “Perhaps it’s time to move on?”

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.