3 Count: Not Groovy

Jonathan BaileyApril 23, 2013

2 minutes read

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

1: Will.i.am Admits Copyright Infringement on Track Featuring Chris Brown

First off today, Tony Maglio at The Wrap writes that Black Eyes Peas member Will.i.am has admitted to using a track by Arty and Mat Zo for his newest single, “Let’s Go”, which is a collaboration between him and Chris Brown.

Controversy erupted last week when several people noticed similarities between Will.i.am’s song “Let’s Gol” with Arty and Zo’s track “Rebound”. YouTube comparisons seemed to indicate that the two songs were almost identical note for note.

On KIIS FM, Will.i.am admitted to using the song saying that he had approached Arty about using the track and creating a different version of Rebound for the new song. However, when it was all done, he decided he decided to use the original. According to Will.i.am, “Something happened” with the clearance and he hopes the issue is resolved now.

2: Prolific BitTorrent Uploader Faces Jail Time in Sweden

Next up today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that an unnamed individual in Sweden is facing stiff criminal penalties for for his role as both a moderator of the now-defunct Swedish BitTorrent site Swebits and also as a prolific uploader, having provided some 500 new torrents to the community.

Swebits was one of the country’s most popular torrent sites, running form 2004 until 2011 when it was closed for unclear reasons. The individual facing the charges was a moderator at the site from 2008 right until its closure.

The individual obtained the torrents from “scene” websites, of which he was a member. These sites typically are the first to leak new content and involve higher-level pirates that are harder to catch. However, this person was caught because he failed to mask his IP address and was also outed by other members of the community after he angered some of them.

3: Grooveshark CEO: ‘I’m Broke’

Finally today, Seth Fiegerman at Mashable writes that Grooveshark co-founder and CEO Sam Tarantino sat down to discuss what is going on with the company and acknowledged that his controversial music streaming service has faced some difficult times.

Groovershark is a music streaming service where users upload content to the site for others to listen to. Record labels have accused Grooveshark of facilitating and profiting from massive copyright infringement and there are several lawsuits ongoing against it. Those battles, along with other setbacks, have taken their toll on the company which has had to shrink staff drastically, by more than half at one point, and, according to Tarantino, he is “broke” and living off a salary of $60,000 per year.

Still, Grooeshark hopes to stage a comeback, first by introducing HTML5 apps to replace its apps removed from both iOS and Android app stores, and by introducing radio features similar to Pandora. Though Grooveshark appears to think it’s weathered the worst of the storm, there are still many lawsuits active against them and many larger and licensed competitors in the market.

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.