1: Legal experts: LimeWire Likely Doomed

First off today, feedback and commentary from yesterday’s ruling in the LimeWire case is flowing in and a consensus is emerging, LimeWire is doomed. The big question at this time is whether the record labels, which successfully sued LimeWire and its CEO for vicarious copyright infringement will file for an injunction against the service before the June 1 status conference or attempt to work out a resolution there. In fact, most experts agree even an appeal will do little to stave off an injunction, if requested, as the judge felt she had many good reasons to make the ruling she did.

2: Nintendo Files Lawsuit Against R4 Seller

Next up today, Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against video game seller NXPGAME saying that the company sold the R4 Chip, which Nintendo says is a chip used to play pirated Nintendo DS games and is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Nintendo also claims that they previously demanded the company stop sale of the R4 chip and they complied, only to open up a new site to sell it and redirect their visitors there.

3: New SDNY Case Points Out Need For Reform

Finally today, artists and photographers who thought they had found an end-run around much of the U.S. registration requirement were sorely disappointed this week. Artists who had used Corbis to bundle their works and register them under Corbis’ name, with an agreement the rights would refer back to the photographer after registration, have had their approach shot down in court and their registrations invalidated. The judge in the case did recognize that, though constrained by the law, the law was probably not the best thought out and likely in need of reform.

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 Attorney Slams ACTA Copyright Treaty

First off today, Daphne Keller, a senior policy counsel at Google has joined up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and other public interest groups to vocally oppose the upcoming ACTA treaty. The treaty, according to Keller, will increase the liability for internet service providers, including possibly Google and create a form of copyright “imperialism”. The comments came at the Legal Frontiers in Digital Media conference, where Keller was speaking.

2: Nintendo Implementing Stronger Anti-Piracy Measures in 3DS

Next up today, as Nintendo prepares to launch the 3DS, the next in its line of handheld gaming devices, it has announced that it is planning much tougher anti-piracy measures. It’s current portable gaming system, the DS, has been plagued with piracy resulting in a loss of sales, in particular in Asia and Europe. It is unclear what these measures will be though firmware updates are largely expected to be a part of the proposed solution.

3: Saving a penny — pirating the Humble Indie Bundle

Finally today, Wolfire, an independent gaming studio and the company behind the “Humble Indie Bundle”, a collection of five games plus a free gift at a price determined by the buyer, However, according to the company, at least 25% of the bundle’s downloads were pirated, not counting copies distributed on bittorrent and other file sharing networks, this despite the fact the entire bundle can be purchased for a penny and proceeds can go to charity. The company said it is not planning on taking any action against pirates, the games are currently easy to download without payment and are available without DRM, but Wolfire did ask pirates to use bittorrent or other file sharing networks to spare the company’s bandwidth.

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: $1.5m Fine for Illegal Game Upload

First off, an Australian man has been ordered to pay Nintendo $1.5 million and cover $100,000 in court costs for uploading a copy of Mario Bros Wii to a file sharing site a week before the game’s release. The site in question was shut down quickly but the game was downloaded “many thousands of times” before then.

2: More Posner Plagiarism

Next up today, Gerald Posner, a reporter for the Daily Beast, has been hit with two back-to-back allegations of plagiarism, accusations that have apparently cost Posner his job. Posner stands accused of having lifted passages from The Miami Herald as well as a Texas attorney among others.

3: Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ Reprint Under Way, Bucking German Ban

Finally today, the copyright on Hitler’s autobiography “Mein Kampf” is due to fall out of copyright in 2015 and plans are already underway to reprint the controversial work. The state of Bavaria currently holds the copyright to the work and has banned all reprints, including for academic purposes, and publication is still banned in Germany, copyrighted or not. Bavaria has expressed concern that the book could be used for neo-nazi propaganda, a concern researchers are saying they hope to counter in advance.

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.

1: Guardrails for the Internet: Preserving Creativity Online

First off today, a great deal of controversy is swirling over an opinion piece posted by Michael Lynton, the CEO and Chairman of Sony, to the Huffington Post.

In his editorial, in this editorial, he says that piracy is a major burden on the copyright holders and puts the entire Web at risk and proposes putting safeguards on the Web to, in his view, make the Web a better place to sell and promote creative works. He likens the Web to the highway system and encourages that “rules of the road” be placed on the Web.

Naturally, this has caused a great deal of controversy and led some to even post paragraph by paragraph rebuttals. It seems as if, rightly or wrongly, this is going to be the conversation piece for copyright for the next few days…

2: Gaming anti-piracy chief blasts ‘terrorists’

Next up today, Yutaka Kubota, the president of Japan’s Association of Copyright for Computer Software, used the word “terrorist” to describe those who pirate Nintendo DS games. This has upset many on both sides of the issue and flames tensions at a very critical time for Japan.

This come on the heels of Nintendo releasing estimates that 120 million DS games have been bootlegged and Japan is considering legislation to criminalize such piracy, which is currently legal under current Japanese law.

3: EU pushes music industry to open up online rights

Finally today, EU antitrust regulators have sent a strong message to the various licensing boards and publishers “to move quickly to adapt their licensing solutions to the online environment.”

This isn’t the first time the EU government has made statements along these lines but, this time, it seems to be tinged with more of a threat. The European Commission has already found the collecting societies guilty of anti-trust violations but did not impose any fines at the time, which was July of 2008.

The biggest problem that the EU government has is that there is no EU-wide licensing system. There are different systems in most countries, 12 overall, and artists are typically bound to the organization that serves their particular nation. This is one of the reasons why Apple does not provide an iTunes store EU-wide.

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: Lawsuits Galore: Songbeat Silenced For Now, Won’t Go Down Without A Fight

Controversial German music start up Songbeat has temporarily shut its doors. It was sued successfully by Warner Music last week and has closed its site, putting up a tongue-in-cheek message about how Songbeat has been sent away to “enter the 36 Shaolin Chambers of Software Kung Fu”. Songbeat says the move is temporary pending either an appeal or a relocation to a more friendly location.

Songbeat was a service that allowed users to search for, stream and download virtually any song from various sources on the Internet, thus letting users listen to any music whenever they desired.

2: Nintendo asks for help against biggest piracy offenders

Second, in a move usually reserved for national governments, Nintendo has issued a press release calling out entire nations for what it feels are issues with piracy. In particular, the nations Nintendo sites are China, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Spain and Paraguay.

Nintendo is asking the U.S. government to do more to thwart piracy in those nations and put pressure on their governments to pass new laws and more strongly enforce existing ones.

3: Music Labels Reach A New Low, Sue Developer For Using Seeqpod API

Finally today, EMI has followed the lead of Warner Music in suing music streaming service Seeqpod. While that is not a surprise in and of itself given the legal gray area of the service, which searches for MP3s on various sites and allows users to listen to music in a built-in media player, but what does make this suit interesting is that both one of the executives of the company personally and by suing a developer that used the Seeqpod API.

If this suit is successful, it could have serious implications for developers that build applications using the APIs of potentially infringing services.

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.