3 Count: Pretty Fly Indeed

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

1: Come Out and Pay: Round Hill Buys Offspring Catalog for $35 Million

First off today, Ed Christman at Billboard reports that members of The Offspring, a punk band that hit it big in the 90s, has sold their entire catalog to Round Hill Music for $35 million.

The deal included the publishing rights of all Offspring albums, including the ones from their early career when they were at Epitaph Records. However, Epitaph will retain control over the master recordings to the band’s first hit album Smash and another album recorded at the label.

The catalog is rumored to have made approximately $3.1 million in the past year and the deal is made possible by an arrangement with the Columbia Records, which signed the band in 1996. That agreement promised to give control of the master recordings back to the band after 18 years. The band had been working to auction off all of their rights since at least August 2015.

2: German Publisher Group Sues Google Again Under Draconian Copyright Law

Next up today, Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land reports that VG Media, a group that represents more than 200 publisher in Germany, has filed suit against Google in the country under the nation’s “Anciallary Copyright” law.

The law was passed in 2013 and requires search engines, like Google, to pay publishers to include snippets of their their content in search results. The law was heavily lobbied for by publishers, who felt that Google was unfairly exploiting their work for their own profit.

Though the complaint has not been made public, it is the fifth such complaint VG has filed against Google since the law passed. Three of the others have been resolved in Google’s favor and two others are still pending.

3: Bill Bryson Publishers Allowed to Keep Jolly Fisherman Cover Image

Finally today, the BBC is reporting that that the Skegness Town Council has reached a deal with with the publisher Transworld to allow it to continue using a likeness of Skegness’ Jolly Fisherman statute on the cover of a book by author Bill Bryson.

The book in question, The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island features Bryson’s notes from his visit to the town, which was less than flattering at times. However, the cover of the book featured a likeness of the statue the Jolly Fisherman, which is featured prominently in a fountain at a town square in Skegness. Once the publisher learned that the statue was still protected under copyright until 2018, they reached out to the town council to seek permission.

The town, however, simply accepted that the publisher made a “genuine mistake” and the publisher has agreed to credit the image in future publications. Both sides said that they are happy with the arrangement and publication of the book can continue without incident.

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.

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