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

1: Innocents Chased to Pay for Illegal Porn Downloads

First off today, a whistleblower has come forward saying that she quit her job at MediaCAT, the copyright protection service that formerly partnered with the UK law firm ACS:Law to send thousands of threatening letters to suspected file sharers, after the company continued to target people that they knew were innocent. The release comes as ACS:Law is facing disciplinary hearings and an ongoing legal case, despite having ceased operations last month.

2: Pandora’s IPO Filing: Copyright Fees Eat Up Half Its Revenues

Next up today, Pandora has filed documents for its upcoming IPO and, along the way, has given an inside look at how the streaming radio service has dealt with copyright and licensing issues. According to their filing, Pandora spends a full 50% of its revenues on licensing, including $45 million in the 2010 fiscal year. The company has also had a falling out with one of the licensing agencies, ASCAP, and is poised for a bitter legal fight over its royalty rates. Finally, Pandora says it wants to expand internationally but can’t because their presence in the U.S. depends on statutory licensing, which prevents them from having to negotiate with labels individually, something not available in other countries.

3: Students Scan Textbooks to Skirt Cost

Finally today, Oklahoma University is facing a copyright challenge as students are using the school’s library scanners to copy entire textbooks and save them to flash drives. The library has a long-standing copyright and fair use policy for the scanners, including having students agree to it before using them, but it seems many students are ignoring the warnings and raising questions about the school’s responsibility in enforcing copyright law when students use its equipment.

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: Music streaming service rejects Canada

First off today, music streaming service Pandora, which has become extremely popular in the United States, has announced it will not be expanding into Canada. The reason, according to the company’s founder Tim Westergren, is that the royalty rates in Canada are simply too high. According to him, Re:Sound, the group that collects royalties on behalf of record companies and performing artists, wants a royalty payment of 45% of the site’s revenue on top of other royalties. As a result, Pandora is scuttling any short-term expansion plans in Canada to see if the Copyright Royalty Board approves the rate.

2: Producer Sues BitTorrent Users, But Doesn’t ‘Own’ Copyright

Adult film producer Mick Haig’s lawsuit against 670 suspected file sharers seems to have hit a landmine. Haig, who sued over illegal downloads of his film Der Gute Onkel never registered the work with the U.S. Copyright Office, making it so that the court does not have jurisdiction over the issue. Haig could go back and file the registration but would only be eligible for actual damages, not the high statutory damages awards.

3: Judge Rules ‘Disturbia’ Didn’t Infringe on ‘Rear Window’

Finally today, a Manhattan judge ruled Stephen King’s movie “Disturbia” did not infringe upon the Cornell Woolrich short story “It Had to Be Murder,” which was published in 1942 and was the basis of the Alfred Hitchcock movie “Rear Window”. The Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust, which holds the right to the short story, had sued King and others involved with “Disturbia” saying that it copied the story however the judge found that the only elements that were the same were not copyrightable and no infringement took place. There is no word on the possibility of an appeal.

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: Webcasters, Copyright Holders Reach Royalty Agreement

First off today, after over two years of wrangling, webcasters and rightsholders have reached an agreement for royalties to be paid on music played over the Internet. The new rate, which is schedule to be 0.097 cent per song, per person, in 2010 is less than half of the rate proposed by the Copyright Royalty Board in 2007, which was 0.19 cent.

Under this agreement webcasters will pay either the flat rate or 25% of revenue, whichever is higher. Though this new proposal should keep most webcasters from going out of business, at least one, Live365, is opposed to the plan saying that it is unfavorable to smaller stations.

The good news is that most larger webcasters seem to feel they can live with the agreement at this time and it doesn’t seem that any stations will be closing their doors in the immediate future…

2: Judge rules Warner Bros. paid ‘fair-market value’ for ‘Superman’ rights

Next up, the heirs of Superman co-creator Jerome Siegel suffered a minor setback in their ongoing case against DC Comics, ruling that DC paid a fair market value on the royalties and that Siegel was not given less than his share.

This comes one year after the heirs won half interest in the character of Superman, meaning that, begininning in 2013, the Siegels, along with the estate of Joe Shuster, the other co-creator, will have the sole right to license Superman for movies, comic books, TV, etc.

The accounting phase of the trial, which will determine how much back royalties the Siegel’s are owed, will begin in December.

3: Copyright laws threaten our online freedom

Finally today, Christian Engström, the Pirate Party MP to the EU Parliament, has penned an op-ed piece for the Financial Times calling copyright a threat to online freedom saying that copyright enforcement could become a mechanism for the creation of a “big brother” society.

Engström, instead calls for greater securities of users privacy and severe limitations on copyright law. He sites examples such as Wikipedia, where no audio is available on the pages of famous artists, and YouTube, where mashups are often taken down, as examples of the problem.

Whether you agree with him or not, it is an important op-ed to read and think about.

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.

As usual, I sat down with Chris Matthieu from Numly to discuss the past week in copyright news, views and abuse. This week was a whirlwind week, with eighteen stories covering a wide spectrum of topics from all over the online copyright landscape.

This week’s stories include.

• AT&T Talks About Copyright Filtering
• The RIAA’s Existence Called Into Question
• The UK Loses Pandora, but Might Gain CD Ripping
• Trent Reznor is Frustrated at the Price of Free Music
• A Metaphysical School Gets into a Copyright Row
• And Many more…

You can download the MP3 file here (direct download). Those interested in subscribing to the show can do so via this feed.

Show Notes

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/plagiarismtoday/copyright20eps41.mp3]