3 Count: Trojan Notices

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1: 5th Circuit Gets Tricky Trade Secret Case

First off today, Bloomberg BNA reports that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will review the case of Spear Marketing v. BancorpSouth Bank, which delves into the murky waters where trade secret and copyright intersect.

The case centers around software used to determine how much cash should be stored in each of a bank’s ATMs to meet customer needs. The district court in the case issued a ruling that, since the defendant had allegedly used some software source code, the trade secret claims were partially preempted by the copyright act claims, thus making it a Federal case.

However, a later ruling found that all of the claims were preempted, despite a conflicting ruling in another case that said that trade secrets not protected by copyright in software applications, such as outputs and procedures, would not be preempted by the copyright act. This set up the appeals challenge, with the 5th Circuit is taking.

2: Sound Engineer Sues Over Jay Z Copyright

Next up today, MSN Entertainment reports that Jay Z is being sued by a sound engineer that worked on six of the rapper’s albums alleging that he should be co-owner of the songs on them because he was “key to creating the sounds of the releases”.

Is is not Chauncey Mahan’s first legal battle with Jay Z, who was investigated in an extortion plot over several of Jay Z’s master recordings, which went missing in 2002. Mahan allegedly contacted one of Jay Z’s business partners and offered to sell them the masters but was confronted by police when he tried to make the deal. Mahan was questioned, but not arrested and the extortion charges were dropped once the masters were put into safe keeping.

In the current lawsuit, Mahan is seeking a declaration that he is co-author of the tracks and, as such, is owed a share of the copyrights. If successful, he could pave the way for other sound engineers to make similar claims.

3: 30,000 ‘Pirates’ Recei e Fake ‘Fines’ with Trojans Attached

Finally today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that an estimated 30,000 Internet users have received emails containing copyright warnings that ask the user to open up a zip file, which contains a trojan that will, most likely, infect their computer.

The notices have been particularly common in Germany, where the copyright holders have been particularly active in sending out notices to suspected copyright infringers. The notices also carry the names of legitimate law firms that send out such notices, prompting one of those law firms to send out a press release that they are not responsible for the notices.

Users who receive the notice are advised to not open any zip file attached to such a notice as no firm sends their notices in that format.

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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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.

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