3 Count: Punished Film

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1: Broadcasters Denied Injunction Against Aereo in Massachusetts

First off today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that Aereo has emerged victorious in an early ruling in their Boston case, having survived an injunction request by Hearst Station, the owner of the ABC affiliate WCVB-TV.

Aereo, a TV streaming service that uses a series of tiny antennas to capture and retransmit over-the-air broadcast television via the Internet, has faces lawsuits in New York, Boston and, most recently, Utah. However, the rulings in New York, including the appeal have declined to grant broadcasters an injunction against the service. This has been the case even as Aereo competitor and similar service FilmOn lost injunction decisions in California and Washington D.C.

The move comes as broadcasters are looking to take their arguments to the Supreme Court, where they hope to find a more favorable audience than the various circuits so far. However, both the New York and the Boston case are heading toward a possible trial as the preliminary injunction does not determine whether or not the service is actually infringing, just whether the facts are clear enough to shutter the service without a trial.

2: Punisher’ Fan Film Gets Cease-and-Desist Order from Marvel Studios

Next up today, Mark Langshaw at Digital Spy reports that Marvel Studios has sent a cease and desist letter to Mike Pecci, shutting down the filmmaker’s project, a nearly-completed fan film based upon the Marvel character “Punisher” entitled “The Dead Can’t Be Distracted”.

Te film, which was supposedly based on Greg Rucka and Marco Checchetto’s vision of the comic, received blessing from the authors but Marvel moved against it, claiming that the fan film could be mistaken for an official work.

Pecci said that he is still hoping to show the film to Marvel and, hopefully, get their blessing to release it at some point in the future.

3: Greens Make New Bid to Ditch ‘Skynet’ Law

Finally today, Laura Walters at Stuff reports that, in New Zealand, the Green Party is making a push to scrap the nation’s graduated response system, often referred to as the “Skynet” law, claiming that it is ineffective.

According to the party, recent studies have show that similar systems, which send out notices to suspected file sharers and, after a set number of warnings, can result in legal action, haven’t been effective and, in New Zealand, the system has only brought 13 people before the country’s Copyright Tribunal.

Instead, the Green Party wishes to scrap the system and focus on enabling legal alternatives to piracy.

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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