3 Count: Animated Case

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

1: Animator Claude Robinson wins copyright battle over Cinar

First off today, the CBC in Canada is reporting that the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled in favor of cartoonist Claude Robinson, ending a 20-year legal battle between him and the animation production company Cinar, now known as Cookie Jar Group.

In the 1980s, Robinson shopped around a TV show named The Adventures of Robinson Curiosity, a show that was loosely based on the classic Daniel Dufoe novel Robinson Crusoe. However, in 1994, Cinar, one of the companies he pitched to, released an animated series named Robinson Sucroe, which Robinson felt was too close to his original, prompting the lawsuit.

In 2009, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled that Cinar had infringed Robinson and awarded the animator some $5.2 million in damages. Cinar appealed but the Supreme Court has upheld that ruling, making it final and bringing and end to the case for Robinson.

2: DDoS Attacks Take Down What.cd, BTN and PTP BitTorrent Trackers

Next up today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that three of the biggest private BitTorrent trackers, What.cd, Broadcasthe.net (BTN) and PassthePopcorn.me (PTP) were shuttered over the weekend to denial of service attacks.

It is unknown who is behind the attacks but they mirror closely attacks last year carried out by a person known as “Zeiko”, who declared war on the sites after being denied an invite to one of them.

Two of the sites, What.CD and BTN, are still down as of this writing and What.CD has rerouted its IP address a null destination to avoid wasting bandwidth. PTP appears to be back up and running.

3: Hofman May Pull Rubber Duck Over Possible Copyright Issues

Finally today, Queena Yen at The China Post reports that Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman has threatened to end his Rubber Duck exhibition in Keelung, Taiwan after several vendors said they intended to make their own version of the 18-meter-high rubber duck to boost their sales.

Hofman’s duck has traveled all of the world, docking at various ports for exhibitions. However, he’s run into a great deal of trouble in Taiwan already due to counterfeit merchandise that many vendors were selling. He already decided to not attend the exhibition’s opening in protest.

In a letter sent to the Yusheng International Corporation, the company believed to be behind the second duck, Hofman said he will remove his duck from the port if it is created and also consider legal action.

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.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.