3 Count: Flapped Bird

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1: Tenth Circuit Court Will Consider Motion To Block Aereo

First off today, John Eggerton at Broadcasting & Cable reports that a Utah District Court has agreed to hear Fox’s request for a preliminary injunction against Aereo, this despite the fact that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a another lawsuit against Aereo, that one from New York.

Aereo is a service that captures over-the-air broadcast television using a series of tiny antennas, one per customer, and then streams that video over the Internet. Broadcasters have sued them in many different jurisdictions claiming that it is a infringing copyright.

However, last month the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Aereo case from New York, in which broadcasters were denied an injunction. Most of the cases in the lower courts have halted pending the ruling of the Supreme Court, which could easily overrule their decisions. However, despite this, the Utah court has decided to move forward and hear the request though, to date, no court has issued an injunction against Aereo despite several attempts.

2: Comcast Sent 625,000 Copyright Alerts to ‘Pirating’ Customers

Next up today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that the U.S. ISP Comacst has sent out some 625,000 copyright warnings the Copyright Alert System (CAS), sometimes referred to as the “six strikes” system. That number represents under 3% of their customers and about 2,000 emails per day.

Torrentfreak cites “various sources” for its statistics and both Comcast and the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), the organization that oversees the CAS, have declined to talk about the numbers. Though the numbers equal about 3% of Comcast’s accounts, the number is likely much less as some users, almost certainly, received more than one.

The CAS was launched almost exactly one year ago as a partnership between ISPs and copyright holders to send alerts to suspected copyright infringements. It’s been unknown how many alerts were being sent through the system though there had been no reports of anyone having the accounts throttled or acted against, as would be the case after a large number of warnings.

3: Nintendo: No Complaints About ‘Flappy Bird’

Finally today, Newley Purnell at The Wall Street Journal reports that, while the once-popular game “Flappy Bird” may no longer be available in the iOS or Android app stores, it’s not a copyright claim from Nintendo that’s to blame.

Flappy Bird was a mobile game where one tried to navigate a bird through a series of narrow gaps between pipes. The game became the most popular free app in both app stores and reportedly was making its creator, Dong Nguyen, some $50,000 per day in advertising.

However, over the weekend Nguyen abruptly removed the app from the store, saying that its success was ruining his life. Many thought it was a copyright complaint from Nintendo, due to the fact the pipes in the game looked similar to ones features in the Super Mario Brothers games. However, Nintendo has denied sending any such complaint. While that puts an end to the copyright mysteries around the games removal, it leaves open the larger questions about why.

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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