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1: Lawsuit Claims Grooveshark Workers Posted 100,000 Pirated Songs

First off today, Universal Music has filed a second lawsuit against Grooveshark, the music streaming service that has users upload tracks for others to listen to. According to the lawsuit, during their discovery in their first, still ongoing, lawsuit, they claim to have found evidence that points to Universal tracks being uploaded by employees of Escape Media Group, Grooveshark’s parent company. This includes Grooveshark’s CEO, Samuel Tarantino as well as Benjamin Westermann-Clark and Paul Geller, both VPs, who are accused of uploading 1,000s of tracks each. Grooveshark, in the first lawsuit, claimed that it is not liable for infringement due to DMCA safe harbor protections, however, if the tracks were uploaded by their employees, those protections would disappear and open Grooveshark up to massive damages. Universal is seeking an injunction against Grooveshark which, if granted, would likely shut the service down.

2: Publisher Drops Copyright Claim, Favors Fair Use

Next up today, Righthaven, the company that has been suing site owners for allegedly reposting content from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post, has conceded its case against Democratic Underground. The site, which had posted a small excerpt of a news article from the Review-Journal, was sued by Righthaven and initially won on the grounds that Righthaven didn’t hold rights to the content it was suing for. However, Democratic Underground countersued Righthaven claiming that the use was a fair one to start with and now Righthaven has conceded that point, likely paving the way for similar outcomes in other Righthaven lawsuits.

3: Game Developers Sue China’s Baidu Over Copyright

Finally today, in China, the Content Provider Union (CPU) has filed suit against Baidu, the country’s most popular search engine, claiming that it provides unauthorized downloads for some 350 games for mobile devices. The lawsuit is seeking some 30 million yuan ($4.7 million) in damages. Baidu says that they did not upload the games and they comply with the law in China.

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 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.

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: Vostu Turns Table on Zynga With Game Copying Allegations

First off today, the Brazilian gaming company Vostu has hit back against Zynga claiming that Zynga has no right to sue them over allegedly copying their games because the elements Zynga is accusing Vostu of copying aren’t original to Zynga. Vostu also says that, even as late as January of this year, Zynga had no issue with Vostu’s alleged copying and even expressed interest in buying the company. Zynga has denied the allegations and said that there is a difference between any copying they have done and what they accuse Vostu of doing.

2: Music Piracy Row Escalates Between Label and Magazine

Next up today, London record label Ninja Tunes have accused the German music magazine Backspin of having leaked a promo copy of a promo CD sent to them for review. According to the label, the CD was watermarked to identify who it was sent to and, when the album was leaked online they were able to trace it back to that copy. Backspin, however, said the album was leaked before they even got the CD, a fact that Torrentfreak was not able to confirm. Ninja Tunes has said they will not be sending any more promo CDs to the magazine.

3: Euro Beaks to Rule if TVCatchup.com is Legal

Finally today, the UK High Court has asked the European Court to rule on whether or not TVCatchup, a streaming site that rebroadcasts live TV, is a legal service. The UK court had previously ruled that it was an infringement as, under British law, communicating a copyrighted work to the public is an infringement. However, the court wants to know if that is also a violation under EU law. According to TVCatchup, their service is legal as they don’t control how their equipment is used and only give the means to access the broadcasts.

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.

Rolfe, who became famous for his angry, and often vulgar, reviews of classic video games was one of the most popular directors on YouTube and is the tenth most subscribed to user on the site. His Channel has over 130,000 subscribers and over 6.5 million views.

When the suspension was discovered in the evening of the 19th, speculation mounted about the cause. Several commenters looked at the matter with suspicion and tried to blame a competing video game reviewer. Others attempted to blame YouTube accusing them of banning the account to further their own agenda.

These conspiracy theories were furthered by the previous closures of other accounts including Guru Larry and PlayItBogart, both also video game reviewers

However, other evidence pointed to a likely mistake by GameTrailers, a site Rolfe is affiliated with.

Although Rolfe had not been posting full videos to his YouTube account for some time, he had been posting trailers of his new episodes. When the account was down, most of his videos carried a generic “removed for a terms of service” violation”. However, one of the trailers had an error message indicating that it was removed due to a copyright complaint by GameTrailers.

GameTrailers, whose own YouTube account was suspended as well, was quiet during the controversy. However, when Rolfe’s account was restored, it was revealed that it had indeed been an error by GameTrailers that resulted in the removal.

As of the evening of the 20th, Rolfe’s account has been restored and everything seems to have returned to normal. However, it was a day that many fans of Rolfe’s will never likely forget.

Lessons to be Gleaned

The simple fact is that, when it comes to DMCA notices, mistakes happen. This is especially true when you are working for a company that may have more than one person involved in sending out takedown notices.

However, these mistakes need to be kept to an absolute minimum to avoid these kinds of problems. Not only did the incident hurt Rolfe by denying him access to his YouTube account, but also damaged YouTube’s reputation, caused something of a miniature revolt from other YouTube members, hurt the reputation of other reviewers, even though they had nothing to do with the suspension.

Worst of all, it resulted in the suspension of not just GameTrailer’s own account, but the account that provides some of the best promotion for them.

When sending DMCA notices, it is important to always make sure that the notice is valid, that it is for a use that you definitely intend to stop. Though they are very easy to file, they are typically very difficult to undo.

If you have someone else file notices on your behalf, ensure that either you have full editorial control over the action taken or that the person has a full understanding of the nuances of how your site works and what reuse is permitted.

This no easy task, but it is important to both ensure the effectiveness of your DMCA process and that incidents like this one do not happen to you.