3 Count: Streamloaded

Jonathan BaileyJune 28, 2013

3 minutes read

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

1: ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Appeal Examines Rights of Actors

First off today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that actress Cindy Lee Garcia has had her case heard before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Her case that could answer difficult questions about what copyrights an actor has in his or her work.

Garcia was an actress in the Innocence of Muslims movie, a trailer of which was posted on YouTube and became a source of outrage. Garcia claimed that she was tricked into performing in the film and did not sign a waiver of the rights to her performance. She filed a takedown notice with YouTube seeking removal of the video but YouTube declined, prompting Garcia to sue YouTube’s parent Google.

A lower court judge ruled in favor of Google and denied a preliminary injunction that would have removed the trailer. Garcia appealed that ruling and the judges on the Appeals Court raised many of the same issues as the lower court, namely seeking a clarification of what part of the work she holds copyright to. The judges also questioned Google as to why the video was taken down, regardless of whether or not the takedown was legitimate.

A ruling on the case is not expected for some time.

2: Marvel Gets Trial Date In ‘Ghost Rider’ Copyright Case

Next up today, Dominic Patten at Deadline writes that a trial date has been set in the Ghost Rider case. Under this order, barring any last-minute settlements, the case will be decided by eight jurors at a trial starting on November 4, 2013.

The case centers around Gary Friedrich, a former Marvel freelancer who claims to have created Ghost Rider while working there. Marvel does not dispute that he worked on Ghost Rider but says the character was collaborative and that Friedrich signed over all rights to his work as part of his employment.

Though the judge initially agreed with Marvel, the appeals court recently reversed that decision saying that the language in the contract Friedrich signed was too vague. That sent the case back down to the lower court, where the judge is moving things forward quickly toward a trial.

3: ‘Streamloading’ Circumvents Copyright Law to Kill Video Buffering and Data Overages

Finally today, McLean Gordon at Vice reports that Dr. Shivendra S. Panwar and his team of researchers at Polytechnic Institute of New York University have devised that they think is a solution to streaming video in low-bandwidth situations that can keep both mobile users and copyright holders happy.

The idea is called “Streamloading” and it works by dividing up a video into two parts. The higher layer is downloaded before a video is to be watched, ideally over a high-speed connection, but is useless without a base layer that is streamed live to the user. However, the base layer requires only a fraction of the bandwidth, meaning a streaming movie can be watched even under less-ideal connectivity.

The technology has the potential to open up legal streaming services to low-bandwidth customers but it is also aimed at reducing file sharing as the downloaded portion is useless without the base stream.

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.