3 Count: French Revision

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1: France Should Soften Internet ‘three Strikes’ Law, Says Gov’t Report

First off today, Peter Sayer at CIO repots that the French government-commissioned report has made several suggestions on how to reform the nation’s copyright laws, one of the biggest being a proposed weakening of the nation’s “three strikes” system.

The system, which is managed by an independent organization HADOPI, sends out warning letters to suspected infringers and, after two warnings, can result in Internet access being severed and fines of up to 1,500 Euros ($1,947). Thew proposal would scrap HADOPI, turn over the enforcement to a government agency. It would also reduce the maximum fine to 60 euros and eliminate the potential penalty of having your Internet access cut.

Other proposals in the report include imposing a copyright levy on smartphones, tablets and similar devices, forcing publishers to allow the lending of ebooks and forcing collection societies to allow non-commercial remixing of music and film.

2: Composer Accuses Famed Atlanta Rapper Young Jeezy of Copyright Infringement in Misappropriating Lyrics to Song Provided to Rapper in 2009

Next up today, Kirk Watkins writes for the National Law Review that producer Brian Smith has sued Atlanta Rapper Young Jeezy, real name Jay W. Jenkins, and several of the companies and labels that are involved with him.

According to Smith, he copyrighted lyrics to a song named “Jizzle”, registering them with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2008, and submitted them through his manager to Young Jeezy in July 2010. According to Smith, in October of that year, Island Def Jam Music Group registered a copyright of a sound recording of Jizzle, as sung by Young Jeezy.

The complaint alleges that Smith lost revenue, goodwill and relationships with future clients due to the misappropriation of his copyrighted works. The suit is seeking both an injunction and damages.

3: Aereo Expands Cord-Cutting Online TV Service to Atlanta

Finally today, Samantha Murphy at Mashable reports that Aereo, the controversial TV streaming and recording startup, is expanding to Atlanta, opening up pre-registration starting on June 17.

Aereo allows users to stream broadcast television to multiple devices and record shows on a remote DVR. Broadcasters filed a lawsuit against Aereo but both a lower court and an appeals court refused to grant an injunction, saying that Aereo’s system of using multiple, tiny antennas (one per customer) made it similar to remote DVR systems used by many cable companies.

Aereo currently operates New York City and Boston and it also has plans to further expand to 22 more cities, including Chicago, Detroit, Dallas and Philadelphia.

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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