1: Appeal in Salinger Copyright Case

First off today, an appeal in the “Catcher in the Rye” sequel case has been given the go-ahead, even if the Appeals Court feels the likelihood of success is low. In July of last year a judge blocked the sale of 60 Years Later: Coming Through The Rye, a work by Swedish novelist Fredrik Colting saying that it was an unauthorized derivative of J.D. Salinger’s famous work “Catcher in the Rye”. The Appeals Court has sent the case back to the Federal Court but said that most of the elements required for Salinger to be victorious are not in dispute.

2: U.S. Says China, Russia Among Worst Copyright, Patent Offenders

Next up today, U.S. Trade Representatives have released their annual report on the worst offending nations for copyright and patent violations and Russia and China top the list. Other countries included are Canada, Thailand and India, all of which the government says need to toughen their copyright enforcement. President Obama has said that intellectual property will be a major focus of his administration over the next five years as he seeks to double U.S. exports in that time.

3: Twitter Suspends Accounts of Torrent Sites

Finally today, Twitter suspended the accounts of at least two bittorrent sites, citing abuse of the service as the cause. The two sites, YourBitTorrent and TorrentSurf, both lost their accounts and all of their followers but, despite first impressions, it does not seem to be copyright-related as both sites used their Twitter account to push out new torrents posted, an act Twitter might have seen as spam. This is backed up by the fact other torrent-oriented accounts, including larger ones, are still operating on Twitter.

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: Jammie Thomas will appeal, lawyer says

First off today, Jammie Thomas plans on appealing her case, focusing on the constitutionality of the damages levied against her. She has said that she is not interested in any settlement that involves her admitting guilt or paying money and has decided, despite the $1.9 million judgment against her, to appeal the case in hopes of either getting the verdict tossed or the damage reduced.

However, as Ben Sheffner points out in a quote, Thomas has an uphill battle on this front as no Federal court has done what she and her attorneys are asking it to do.

After the first trial, there are reports she received an offer to settle the case for about $25,000, an offer that was passed up in favor of a retrial, where the current $1.9 million verdict was handed down.

2: Ruling for Salinger, Judge Bans ‘Rye’ Sequel

Next up, Judge Deborah A. Batts has issued a preliminary injunction, barring the sale of “60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye” in the U.S. saying that it is an unauthorized sequel of the book “Catcher in the Rye”, written by J.D. Salinger, and is thus a likely violation of Salinger’s copyright. This comes after the judge issued a temporary 10-day order late last month.

Fredrik Colting, the Swedish author of the new book, said his work was intended to be a parody and expressed disbelief at the “banning” of his book. He could still take this matter to trial but the book can not be published in the U.S. until the litigation is resolved.

However, the book is currently published in the UK.

3: The Copyright Catch 22

Finally today, attorney Ronald S. Rosen, who successfully defended John Williams against claims he lifted musical elements when writing the score for E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, explained why he has not released video or podcast versions of his book to help laypeople understand the intricacies of music. Namely that he would need to obtain licenses to use the music, even short passages, in any talk, video or audio presentation he gave.

This highlights the issue with teaching music copyright to up and coming attorneys outside of the courtroom and classroom. It raises a slew of questions about how to educate attorneys and laypeople about these issues moving forward.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll 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.

1: Capitol v. Jammie Thomas-Rasset: Day 3 Recap

First off today, yesterday was day 3 of the Jammie Thomas retrial and the last day of testimony. The “highlight” of the day was Thomas herself taking the stand, tearfully offering another new defense.

In this testimony Thomas, for the first time, admitted that Kazaa was on her computer but now says that it was either her ex boyfriend or one of her children that did the file sharing. There are several problems with that defense, including that the Kazaa username used was the same as her ISP name for several years, the computer was in her bedroom and only she had the administrator password.

However, the tearful testimony may be enough to sway at least some of the jurors, which could throw the case into her favor since a unanimous verdict is required. Today is closing arguments in the case and the trial should be in the hands of jurors by this afternoon.

(Note: According to Twitter, closing arguments wrapped up as I was typing this article.)

2: Temporary Restraining Order Issued in Salinger Case

Next up today, the “Catcher in the Rye” case has taken yet another twist as the judge in the case has issued a temporary restraining order barring publication of the book and hinted that she does not feel the fair use defense applies strongly to the case.

The case centers around Swedish author Fredrik Coltin who penned and was preparing to publish the book “60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye”, an allged sequel of J.D. Salinger’s “Cather in the Rye”. Coltin had argued that the book was a parody and allowable under fair use but the judge, though not ruling on the fair use element, said that the commentary was “not perceptible at all”, leading many to believe she was going to rule against the fair use argument right then. Instead, she has decided to wait a few days before ruling.

This ruling is also historic because it is the first time in this district that a judge has ruled an individual character in a story, in t his case Holden Cauflield, is protected by copyright.

At the moment, I think it is safe to say that things do not look very good for Coltin in this case.

3: Harvard Study Finds Weaker Copyright Protection Has Benefited Society

Finally today, a new study released by Harvard Business School finds that weaker copyright protection primarily in the form of file sharing technologies, has had an overall benefit on society and have encouraged the production of new artistic works.

The reason for this, according to the researchers, is because file sharing has had neither a negative nor a positive effect on the sale of copyrighted goods, but have increased the sales of “complimentary goods” such as concerts, speaking tours, etc. that have been increased due to the wider exposure of copyrighted works over these networks.

How this study will be received is the big question, especially as major governments across the world work to further clamp down on file sharing and other forms of online copyright infringement.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll 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.

1: Salinger sues over “Catcher in the Rye” sequel

First off today, author J.D. Salinger, who penned the famous book “Catcher in the Rye”, has filed suit against both the publisher and the author of an unofficial sequel to his novel entitled, “60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye” written by someone under the name. “J.D. California”.

The suit seeks to block publication of the book, which was slated to be published later this year by Swedish publisher Nicotext.

Whether Salinger’s work, which was first published in 1951, is in the public domain or not will depend on whether its copyright was renewed, which seems very likely. If that is the case, copyright in the work should expire in 2046.

2: Microsoft’s Bing playing fast and loose with fair use?

Bing has been causing quite a stir these past few days but some of it appears to be a copyright controversy.

Bing, as part of its search engine shows previews, or thumbnails of videos that, when a user hovers their mouse over the image, the thumbnail both shows the video and, in some cases, plays the audio.

All-around great attorney and awesome person Denise Howell has asked whether this may be playing “fast and loose” with fair use as it takes the Perfect 10 ruling, which found that thumbnails of images were a fair use when used as part of search engines, and changes several of the factors to be less favorable toward Bing.

It’s a difficult question but she definitely has a point. We won’t know until someone takes the time to sue Microsoft over this. Which, if history is any indication, Perfect 10 is already drafting the papers (joke).

3: Cert Watch: Costco Wholesale Corporation v. Omega, S.A.

Finally today, we have a small dose of copyright fail, though I am not sure where to place the fail just yet.

Costco has found itself in a lawsuit filed by the manufacturers of a set of watches, Omega. The company manufactures watches overseas and, via authorized dealers, imports them into the U.S. Costco was able to take advantage of this to sell the watches at a lower price. Omega, unhappy with this, engraves its watches with a small emblem and, when Costco repeats the process, Omega sues for illegal importation of copyrighted goods.

This might seem to the copyright scholars to be a clear cut case of first sale, but that apparently doesn’t imply in this case as first sale only applies to works made within the U.S., at least according to the 9th Circuit. However, that creates a series of problems with copyright law, which Costco highlights in its reply.

The biggest is that it encourages companies to move manufacturing and the creation of copyrighted works overseas, and could be used to, theoretically, crush services such as Netflix by just moving DVD printing to another country.

So yeah, we have some copyright fail here, I’m just not sure on who’s part.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll 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.