3 Count: Spotty Conflict

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1: Thom Yorke Albums Pulled from Spotify

First off today, Tim Ingham at MusicWeek reports that music producer Nigel Godrich and musician Thom Yorke have pulled various albums they have worked on together, including ones for Yorke’s solo effort, the band Atoms for Peace and Godrich’s solo album, out of Spotify due to what they consider to be low payouts.

The publicized pullout also lead to a war of words between the parties, with Yorke and his Atoms for Peace bandmates taking to Twitter to complain about the small payouts and what they see as an unsustainable model from Spotify. However, Spotify hit back saying that they are focused on being artist friendly and noted that Yorke is well-known for his business model experimentation.

Yorke, best known as the lead vocalist for Radiohead, has also removed Radiohead’s “In Rainbow” album from Spotify. That album was famously released under a “pay what you want” system without label backing. Other Radiohead CDs released through a label remain available.

2: Goodreads Hit With Copyright Suit Over Fan Photo

Next up today, Jeff John Roberts at PaidContent reports that Amazon-owned social network Goodreads has been sued by BWP Media over the alleged uploading of a photo owned by the company.

The photo, which is a shot of a member of the boy band IM5, was uploaded to a small group on the site. It was uploaded by a user of the group as part of a collection focusing on the group.

However, the lawsuit may have a tough time as the site is almost certainly protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which generally shields hosts from infringement claims caused by the actions of their users. The lawsuit is seeking $150,000 in damages.

3: HBO Asks Google to Take Down “Infringing” VLC Media Player

Finally today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that HBO, when seeking to remove pirated copies of Game of Thrones from Google, filed a massive DMCA takedown notice that, among other mistakes, also asked for removal of a download link for the popular free VLC video player.

HBO has had issues with accidental removals in the past, having previously also tried to get its own site removed from Google by including it in a notice. However, the VLC mistake caused anger among many as it is an open source application that is very popular among the free software community.

Google caught the mistake and declined to remove the URL. The link, which is on a torrent site and is not a main download link for the player, remains in the search index.

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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