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

1: Record Labels Fail to Get ‘Three Strikes’ Rule Enforced in Ireland

First off today, IRMA, Ireland’s counterpart to the RIAA, has failed in its bid to force Irish ISP UPC to enforce a “three strikes” policy and disconnect alleged file sharers. The country’s high court ruled that the ISP is a “mere conduit” and does not have any obligation to disconnect suspected file sharers. UPC has vowed to work with copyright holders but applauded the ruling. IRMA had, in the past, successfully pushed another Irish ISP, Eircom, into implementing such a scheme, it is unclear if that agreement will change.

2: Why the CBC Banned Creative Commons Music From its Shows

Next up today, in Canada the CBC, Canada’s national public radio and television broadcaster, recently banned the use of Creative Commons music in their broadcasts. The reason, according to a CBC representative, is because many of the uses of Creative Commons content can be described as commercial use, including copies for sale on iTunes, and the majority of CC-licensed work is not available for commercial use. However, the CBC did say that they will continue to use CC-licensed works on their non-commercial platforms as appropriate.

3: Carnahan: Fox News Lacked Copyright When it Sued

Finally today, last month Fox News sued the Robin Carnahan campaign alleging their commercial, which used a clip from one of the network’s shows, violated copyright. However, as well as fair use arguments, their attorneys have another potential case, in that Fox News had not yet registered their copyright in the work when they filed suit. The registration for the video is dated September 20, five days after the lawsuit was filed, meaning the court likely doesn’t have jurisdiction over the matter.

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 6 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.

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

1: Fox News Sues Democratic Senate Candidate

First off today, Fox News has sued Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Robin Carnahan for her use of Fox News footage in a commercial that, according to the network, made it seem they were endorsing her. Specifically at issue is an interview with Carnahan’s Republican opponent, Roy Blunt, where Fox News asked difficult questions of Blunt. Carnahan used a clip from the interview in her ad, prompting Fox News to file the lawsuilt. The YouTube version of the commercial has also been removed after a DMCA notice by Fox News.

2: Movie Rental Outfit Calls For Nationwide Pirate Bay Block

Next up today, ACAPOR, a Portuguese organization that represents movie rental companies within the country, is asking Ministry of Culture to require ISPs in Portugal to block access to The Pirate Bay. The group has also announced it is launching a separate case against Piratatuga.net, a site it claims is as popular as The Pirate Bay in the country. However, convincing the government to block either site appears to be a long shot at best.

3: The Significance of the Huge European Warez Scene Raids

Finally today, Torrentfreak has done some reporting on the results of the recent “Scene” raids in the EU and, along the way, offers some insight about how the Scene works. Scene sites are sites atop the piracy pyramid, where movies and albums are leaked well before they appear on other file sharing sites, and several of them were raided across a dozen countries in the EU last week. According to tips TorrentFreak has received, at least some of the sites sat atop the Scene pyramid as well, which scores sites on a scale of 0-3, including one of the two “3″ sites. Exactly how disruptive this will be to the Scene community remains to be, well, seen.

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 6 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.

1: Songwriters: Piracy “Dwarfs Bank Robbery,” FBI Must Act

First off today, the Songwriter’s Guild of America made its wishes known to the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator in the White House, Victoria Espinel, as part of her public feedback request. According to the SGA online piracy should be a higher priority for the FBI and other enforcement agencies as the economic impact is greater than bank robbery and other crimes that the guild feels gets more attention. They are encouraging the FBI to go after heavy file sharers both criminally and civilly.

2: Fox News, Rupert Murdoch… All Pirates

Flickr user Orvatli is upset with Fox News after the news channel began using his photos taken of the volcanic eruption in Iceland on their site without permission or payment. Orvatli has sent Fox News an invoice for the use of his images, but has received no response. The follows a similar case involving misuse of Orvatli’s work by the blog Gizmodo, which paid him some for the use of his images, and as Fox News owner and media mogul Rupert Murdoch is taking an aggressive stance against infringement of his content on the Web.

3: Rapper Sues Lil Wayne For “Lollipop”, Claims Copyright Infringement

Finally today, Rapper Lil Wayne, who is currently incarcerated in New York’s Rikers Prison, has been sued by Philadelphia rapper Dirahn Gilliams, who claims that Wayne’s hit song “Lolipop” used elements from his song “Grinding Like A Goon”. The suit also names producers Jonsin and Deezle in the suit as well as Lil Wayne’s labels.

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 6 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.

1: Google Apologises to Chinese Writers Over Book Flap

First off today, Google, which has found itself under siege regarding its Google Book Search product, has publicly apologized to Chinese authors for what it calls poor communication with Chinese authors over its book scanning project.

This follows a lawsuit filed by Chinese fiction author Mian Mian, who sued the company over the project in December. It also comes as Google is working to settle a lawsuit by U.S. authors and publishers against the company. That settlement will see Google pay $125 million and enter into a profit-sharing system with authors and publishers, however, it will also enable Google to scan, display and sell copies of in-copyright but out-of-print works.

According to the article, the China Written Works Copyright Society is in negotiations with Google over these issues but, so far, the authors have refused all of the settlement offers. In the meantime, Google has said they are no longer scanning books without author approval.

2: Marvel Sues Over Copyright Claims by Artist’s Heirs

Next up today, Marvel Comics has hit back against the heirs of Jack Kirby, saying that they are attempting to rewrite his history with the company when they filed to reclaim copyrights to some of the works Kirby had a role in creating, including X-Men and Fantastic Four.

The copyright termination process allows copyright holders, or their heirs, to reclaim the last 39 years of the copyright of a property from a party they signed it away to if they provide a timely notice. Kirby’s heirs filed the notice recently, stating that they would begin reclaiming the copyright in 2014.

However, Marvel is saying that Kirby was an employee of the company at the time and that the works are works for hire and, thus, are owned wholly by Marvel.

Marvel is asking for a declaratory judgement of ownership and seems to be preparing for a very pitched legal battle. This comes mere months after Marvel was purchased by Disney in one of the most prominent deals the industry has seen.

3: Fox News Sued For Interview With Michael Jackson’s Ex

Finally today, Fox News is at the center of a copyright lawsuit, this one from F. Marc Schaffel, a former adviser to Michael Jackson, who holds the copyright in an interview he conduced with Jackson’s ex-wife, Deborah Rowe, which the channel aired portions of in order to allegedly balance ABC’s running of another, more damaging, interview Schaffel videotaped with Jackson himself.

Schaffel also took the opportunity to take a dig at Rupert Murdoch’s past attempts to accuse Google and other search engines of copyright infringement, saying that “Fox sanctimoniously operates unencumbered by the very copyright restrictions it seeks to impose on its competitors.”

Fox did not have a comment on the lawsuit, citing a policy of not commenting on pending litigation, but this is not the first lawsuit for Schaffel, who had a famous falling out with Jackson 2006 over the footage in question.

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 Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

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

1: Google, Plaintiffs Submit Revised Book Search Settlement

FIrst off today, Google, publishers and the Author’s Guild barely made a deadline on Friday to submit their revised settlement regarding the Google Book Search project.

Google had been sued by the other parties for its book scanning project but the two sides had hammered out an expansive settlement that allowed Google to scan, display and even sell copies of in-copyright but out-of-print works on its site, in exchange for a percentage of the advertising and sales revenues. However, the Department of Justice cited anti-trust concerns with the settlement and forced the two sides back to the negotiating table where they drafted the new version.

Among the changes in the new settlement are that the settlement will now only include works either registered with the U.S. Copyright Office or published in the U.K., Australia, or Canada as rightsholders in those countries are joining the case as named plaintiffs, the creation of a Book Rights Registry with the task of tracking down and holding money for writers who are not a direct party to the settlement, a provision that that book retailers will be able to sell consumers online access to the out-of-print books covered by the settlement and the ability of rightsholders to loosen restrictions on books in the database, including adding CC licenses or removing restrictions on printing.

At this time, critics of the original settlement do not seem to be appeased, calling it a “surgical” alteration, and the DOJ is yet to comment. It will have to be seen whether or not the settlement will be accepted over the long haul.

2: Apple Crushes Clone Maker in Court

Next up today, it was a big win for Apple in court this week as a California judge ruled in their favor in their suit against Psystar, handing them a sweeping verdict that will be very difficult for the clone maker to overcome.

Psystar, which makes custom PCs with the Apple OSX operating system, had been involved in an ongoing dispute with Apple after the company accused it of violating its end user license agreement, the DMCA and other elements of Apple’s Copyright. Psystar hit back, suing Apple and Apple countersued. However, the judge ruled that Apple’e EULA, which prohibits putting OSX on non-Apple computers, is legal and Psystar’s actions do constitute a breach of that contract and that Psystar’s breaking of DRM schemes that Apple uses to prevent its OS from being used on other systems was a violation of the DMCA.

A hearing on damages is set for December 14. A similar case, one that deals with 10.6 (the California case deals with 10.5) is ongoing in Florida.

3: Fox News Declares Cyberwar on Liberal Blogosphere

Finally today, Fox News seems to be on a takedown bender on YouTube, demanding its clips be removed from a variety of YouTube accounts. Though the takedowns (and suspensions) first seemed to target liberal YouTube channels, such as News1News, it seems to have spread to conservative ones as well, including GlennbeckClipsDaily and ConservativeNation.

What brought about the change in policy is unclear, Fox has traditionally not been extremely aggressive in pursuing clips from its Fox News channel, but this does come on the heels of Rupert Murdoch’s, the owner of News Corp, which owns Fox News, famous interview with Sky News in Australia where he threatened to sue the BBC and remove his content from Google.

Whether this is related to that or not is unclear, but what is obvious is that News Corp is on the war path against what it sees as misuse of its content on the Web, making the Web a dangerous place to post clips of Fox News.

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 Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

But as hot as the debate is among bloggers, it is even more heated in the mainstream media. With millions of dollars invested in content creation and a root that is still firmly in the print and broadcast world, the traditional purveyors of news have far more to weigh when creating their RSS strategies.

So what decisions have they made? How have they decided to use RSS to distribute their content across the Web? In this article I’m going to evaluate twelve of the biggest names in the mainstream media and how they use this new technology.

Preface

Before delving into the analysis, a few caveats.

First, the RSS feed count is NOT a total count of all the feeds available on a site, but rather, the approximate number of feeds the company actively promotes. Many sites offer feeds not actively promoted and some offer custom RSS services akin to Technorati. Those are not counted.

Second, there is a difference between a synopsis feed and a partial feed. A partial feed pulls its content from the article itself where a synopsis feed is a specially-written summary for the feed itself.

Keep that information in mind as you read the details below.

Wire Services

Number of Feeds: 13
Style: Partial
Length: Less than fifty words.
Using FeedBurner: No
Autodiscovery on Home Page: No
Notes: The AP doesn’t seem very interested in RSS. It promotes 12 feeds actively plus another “Featured Feed” on their RSS page. The RSS page also contains some very basic subscription help and a very strict TOS that blocks almost all reuse of content. To make matters worse, there is no feed connected with the home page of their site and you have to look closely to find the link to the other feeds. Though they offer feeds for every section of the site, it is clear that they are not a featured product.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 3

Number of Feeds: 43
Style: Partial
Length: One Paragraph
Using FeedBurner: Yes
Autodiscovery on Home Page: Yes
Notes: RSS clearly plays a much larger role on the Reuters site. Not only do they offer 43 feeds, but their “Top News” feed is available via autodiscovery on their home page. Also, their RSS page is clearly marked in the sidebar with both text and an the RSS icon. They also offer very clear subscription instructions, which are further supported via the FeedBurner pages, and a clear terms of service.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 6

Number of Feeds: 1 (English)
Style: Partial
Length: One Paragraph
Using FeedBurner: No
Autodiscovery on Home Page: Yes
Notes: RSS clearly isn’t a big deal to the world’s oldest news agency. It offers only one feed, which can be autodiscovered on their home page, and a concise terms of service for it on their RSS page. All in all, their RSS strategy seems to be a complete void.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 2

Number of Feeds: 18
Style: Partial
Length: One Paragraph
Using FeedBurner: No
Autodiscovery on Home Page: Yes
Notes: UPI’s RSS page is clean, concise and has a decent number of feeds. Unfortunately, their link link to a request form to use their feeds on your site seems to be broken, linking back to their home page.The page itself works fine though, even if it is devoid of any effective RSS information and only contains a handful of chicklets for guidance.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 4

Television

Number of Feeds: 28
Style: Headline/Partial
Length: One Paragraph
Using FeedBurner: No
Autodiscovery on Home Page: Yes
Notes: Finding CNN’s RSS page is no small feat. However, it is not worth the effort. Though it contains, a good number of feeds, some decent explanation of RSS and a robust, if perhaps overly thorough, terms of service, the feeds are a disappointment. They alternate between headline-only and partial feeds, making them very difficult to use, even in a vanilla RSS reader.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 4

Number of Feeds: 26
Style: Synopsis
Length: One Sentence
Using FeedBurner: No
Autodiscovery on Home Page: No
Notes: The BBC’s home page does not have an autodiscovery feed and the link to their RSS page is fairly buried. However, the content on the page is very good, including a decent number of feeds, a clear terms of service and instructions of making custom feeds. They also have prominent links to other services including mobile alerts, email newsletters and podcasts. Though I am not sure how I feel about the synopsis feeds, my biggest issue is that they do not promote their feeds more.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 6

Number of Feeds: 15
Style: Synopsis/Partial
Length: One Sentence
Using FeedBurner: Yes
Autodiscovery on Home Page: Yes
Notes: Fox News readers must not use RSS heavily. The Fox News RSS page seems to be hastily thrown together with a very heavy-handed license that, while allowing reuse of their feed, places a lengthy set of restrictions. The feeds themselves are strange. Some stories seem to use the first paragraph from the story itself, others seem to be a synopsis.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 4

Number of Feeds: 147
Style: Synopsis
Length: One Sentence
Using FeedBurner: No
Autodiscovery on Home Page: Yes
Notes: Visiting the MSNBC RSS page can be very overwhelming. The page is actually spread across four sub-pages and contains a whopping 147 feeds. Though the page has some very good information about how to use RSS, it is strangely devoid of any terms of use. The feeds themselves are unique in that they include images embedded in them. The text is, generally, a short one-sentence synopsis of the article though some seemed to pull from the opening paragraph.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 6

Newspapers

Number of Feeds: 68 (Plus 15 Podcasts)
Style: Synopsis/Partial
Length: One Sentence/Approx. 50 Words
Using FeedBurner: No
Autodiscovery on Home Page: Yes
Notes: The New York Times RSS page is a robust collection of RSS feeds framed by good information about RSS and a solid terms of service. The site even offers a tool to embed their headlines into your site. Their feeds alternate between providing a one-sentence synopsis for news articles and a 50-word partial feed for blog entries.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 7

Number of Feeds: 184
Style: Synopsis/Partial
Length: One Sentence/One Paragraph/Several Paragraphs
Using FeedBurner: No
Autodiscovery on Home Page: No
Notes: The Washington Post claims to have over 150 RSS feeds on their RSS page. but a quick count locates a total of at least 184. The page itself includes some great information about subscribing to RSS feeds but no information regarding a terms of use. The main feeds themselves are synopsis feeds and, on rare occasion, include images. Some of the smaller feeds are partial encompassing the first paragraph and some of the opinion feeds seem to encompass several paragraphs of the entry, though never the whole item.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 7

Number of Feeds: 123
Style: Partial
Length: One Paragraph
Using FeedBurner: No
Autodiscovery on Home Page: Yes
Notes: The London Times RSS page is a lengthy list of well over 100 feeds in a variety of categories. The page includes some basic information on how to subscribe to RSS feeds though a terms of use is strangely missing. The feeds themselves are pretty cut and dry partial feeds using the first paragraph of the original article, this is true in all cases. The system could stand some improvement, but is overall pretty solid for MSM.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 6

Number of Feeds: 25
Style: Synopsis
Length: One Sentence
Using FeedBurner: No
Autodiscovery on Home Page: Yes
Notes: It is hard to tell exactly how many RSS feeds The Guardian has. It doesn’t display all of its feeds on its RSS page and, instead, sprinkles most of them throughout the site. The number above only represents the number promoted on the above page. Their RSS page, however, does provide some very basic information on subscribing to a feed though there is no information about a terms of use. The feeds themselves are straightforward one-sentence synopsis feeds.
RSS-Friendly Rating: 6

Trends

When looking at the evidence above, several trends become evident.

Conclusions

There weren’t many surprises for me as I sought to compile this list. The fact that the mainstream media is being very stingy with what it puts into its RSS feeds should shock no one reading this.

However, it is clear on closer examination that at least most of these companies are actively courting RSS subscribers and some are doing it somewhat well. It is clear that these companies do have an RSS feed strategy and are executing it.

Though we often think of the mainstream media as being dinosaurs in the digital age, they do seem to be making very real, if imperfect, efforts to catch up. Even though I didn’t feel comfortable giving any of the sites above a “7″ for their RSS friendliness, the quality of effort was still higher than I expected.

Now, if we could just overcome this pesky use of partial feeds, we might have something that even the staunches RSS reader can enjoy.