3 Count: Singing the Copyright Blues

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1: Sixth Circuit Affirms the Importance of Identifying Protected Elements of Copyrighted Software

First off today, Sarah Bro at the National Law Review reports that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a ruling upholding a lower court’s ruling that a software copyright holder must specifically list what components of its software are both copyright protected and infringed upon to move a case forward.

The case centered around two companies, Paragon and Automated Solutions. In 2003 the companies worked together to jointly create software for newspapers to help with distribution. But, when that agreement fell apart the same year, Automated Systems claimed that, under the contract, it was the sole rightsholder in the software and won a judgment to that effect.

When Paragon began offering its services to other newspapers, Automated Systems sued even though Paragon claimed that it had created the new work from scratch. The lower court ruled in favor of Paragon, saying that, despite claims Paragon had directly copied its software, since Automated Systems had not produced evidence as to which parts of its software were both original and not not merely functional, it had no case. The Sixth Circuit has now upheld that ruling.

2: UK Piracy Police Arrest Man Suspected of Running Proxy Server

Next up today, Olivia Solon at Wired reports that The City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has arrested a 20-year-old man and shut down the proxy service Immunicity, redirecting it to a page that indicates the site was seized by the City of London Police.

The City of London, which is a municipality within England (and the larger city of London) that functions more like a separate nation within the United Kingdom, has used its police force to target a large number of sites it sees as copyright infringing. Immunicity was targeted because it was a proxy service that was designed to help users get around various blocks, as are often instituted by governments against pirate sites, by helping users connect to proxies for specific domains.

Andy Fyfe, the head of PIPCU, said that “We will come down hard on people believed to be committing or deliberately facilitating such offenses (copyright infringement).” The man who was arrested has not been named but has also been released pending further action.

3: Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood Take Shots At Copyright Lawsuit With ‘High Life’

Finally today, Music Times is reporting that Braid Paisley and Carrie Underwood have hit back in their battle against songwriter Amy Bowen but have taken the fight out of the courtroom, singing about it in their new song “High Life”.

Bowen filed a $10 million lawsuit against Paisley, Chris Dubois and Kelly Lovelace, the last two who were songwriters with Paisley for the song “Remind Me”, which was also a duet for Underwood and Paisley. Bowen accused Paisley and the other defendants of taking the hook from “Remind Me” after Bowen crafted it in a 2008 workshop.

The case recently survived a motion for summary judgment and is moving forward. While there are no updates to the case, “High Life” includes the lines, “I heard a song a couple months ago / It was Carrie Underwood on the radio / It reminded me of a poem my brother wrote / Back in the second grade / Now I know she didn’t steal it, but so what? / We lawyered up and we sued her butt / These days we figure we’d pretty much / Get paid to go away,” which appear to be a direct reference to the lawsuit.

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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