3 Count: Bullish Rage

Jonathan BaileyOctober 1, 2013

2 minutes read

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

1: Supreme Court to Hear ‘Raging Bull’ Appeal

First off today, the Associated Press is reporting that Paula Petrella, the daughter of the late Frank Patrella, who wrote the screenplay for the popular movie “Raging Bull”, will have her case against the film’s studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), heard by the Supreme Court.

Patrella sued MGM for copyright infringement, claiming that the film studio infringer her rights in the screenplay by creating the film and distributing copies of it. However, her case was tossed out in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals because, according to the judges there, she waited too long to file the lawsuit, namely 18 years after she became aware of her claim.

The case will be part of the Supreme Court’s fall session, which starts on October 7th. The government shutdown will not impact the Supreme Court’s schedule.

2: Photographer Wins £20,000 After Celebrity Rights Battle

Next up today, Chris Cheesman at Amateur Photographer reports that British photographer Jason Sheldon has secured a settlement of £20,000 ($32,300) over a photograph he took of the rap group LMFAO and Ke$ha at a party.

A Nottingham nightclub took the photo from Becker’s Tumblr without permission, reasoning that it was acceptable to use, and ran the photo in an advertisement. When Sheldon learned about the infringement, he sent an invoice for £1,351 ($2,200) but the club owner only offered to pay £150 ($242). This prompted Sheldon to sue.

After a series of court rulings went his way, the club owner agreed to settle for £20,000, a fee that Sheldon says includes all of his legal costs.

3: Breaking Bad Finale Clocks 500,000 Pirated Downloads

Finally today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that the series finale to Breaking Bad was downloaded over 500,000 times in the first twelve hours after illegal copies began to appear on file sharing sites. According to their data, Australia was the lead source for such downloads followed by the U.S. and the UK.

However, while the numbers were a record for Breaking Bad, they were not a record for TV in general. The recent season premiere of Game of Thrones had a BitTorrent swarm of over 170,000 people, more than double the 85,000 people that the Breaking Bad swarm saw at its peak.

The most commonly cited reason for the difference is the widespread legal availability of Breaking Bad, which is on Netflix in all three countries listed above. However, many still opted to illegally download the series, including those who had access to legitimate versions of it.

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.