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

1: Apple Confirms Acquisition of Music Site Lala

First off today, Apple has confirmed its acquisition of the music streaming service Lala for an undisclosed amount. This has lead many to speculate what Apple plans to do with the service and how it might integrate into their market-dominating iTunes platform.

Lala has had a brief but controversial history, starting as a CD-swapping service and then dabbling in online radio before becoming a music streaming service that also sold songs for ten cents. Lala would scan user’s hard drives for music and then build a library of their music for streaming online. However, after deciding profitability wasn’t likely, they approached Apple about an acquisition and, according to reports, sold the company for a loss.

Though it’s bad news for Lala shareholders, this merger could mean big things for the online music industry, including, as some theorize, a streaming version of iTunes and/or cloud storage of music files. There is little doubt we’ll be hearing more about this merger in the weeks/months to come.

2: IFPI Use IPRED To Demand File-Sharer Info For The First Time

Next up today, Sweden’s controversial IPRED law, which allows copyright holders to petition the courts to force ISPs to identify alleged infringers, is getting its first workout from the music industry. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has filed a petition in a Stockholm district court to receive the identity of a file sharer who was using a “direct connect” service.

The law, which came into force on April 1st, saw surprisingly little use from the record industry. However, in September, record industry officials hinted that they were just biding their time.

The law also increases the penalties for file sharing and criminalizes large-scale infringement, which makes the choice of a direct connect file sharer interesting as it is easier to prove large scale infringements on such services.

The IFPI has said they have not decided what they will do with the information when they receive it, saying they could go for a lawsuit or just issue a warning.

3: Lawsuit Alleges Palm Pre Violates Copyright

Finally today, cellphone maker Palm is facing a lawsuit over its Pre model, which was billed as an iPhone competitor, claiming that the Pre violates the GPL.

Artifex is claiming that Palm is using their PDF rendering engine, muPDF, without completing the requirements of the GPL license. Palm’s instructions for the phone do make a mention of muPDF and its license, but no source code is provided. In cases where the application is not licensed under the GPL, Artifex requires a commercial license.

Palm declined comment on this lawsuit but this is far from the first time a hardware maker has been sued for allegedly running afoul of the GPL. Linksys, which is owned by Cisco, faced a similar lawsuit earlier this year on similar grounds.

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.

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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.

Hachette Book Group, a New York-based book publisher, announced a new partnership (doc file) with content tracking service Attributor that will allow the company to track uses of its content on the Web.

Though this is yet another major client for Attributor, which already added Time Warner to its video monitoring service in April, it also marks the addition of a new feature for Attributor, PDF detection.

Attributor’s service can now detect duplication in PDF files using a hybrid of its existing text matching service, which is used to detect likely matches, and a file matching system to detect copies. The system works even if the content was not originally uploaded in PDF format, meaning the person offering the unlicensed copies converted the file to PDF, and works with many different file sharing, sometimes referred to as “cyberlocker” sites.

This is a big announcement because it makes the Attributor system useful for a whole new range of new audiences. Where once it was targeted at publishers of text articles, such as blogs, news organizations, etc. it is now available to also help book publishers, such as Hachette, research firms and others that routinely publish to PDF format or have their content repurposed into PDF format.

Though Google and other search engines have been able to find matching text within PDFs, Attributor looks at the PDF file itself, similar to what it does with its image search, enabling it to go beyond simple text matching and look for other similarities. How effective this matching is remains to be seen, may be the subject of a future test for me, but it is an interesting feature and one that is likely to be compelling for for many publishers.

In the end, if you publish a lot of files to PDF format or work in a type of content that is often reformatted into PDFs, you may want to give Attributor a second look.

Attributor’s Brochure (PDF)

Disclosure: I have consulted with Attributor.

Step six specifically instructs you to “sign the paper” and step seven only provides two means of sending it in. The first is via postal mail, the second is via fax.

The problem with these steps is that the vast majority of hosts accept, and even encourage, DMCA notices via email. Email is by far faster and easier to send for such complaints and, according to the ESIGN Act, should be able to deliver a perfectly acceptable electronic signature.

However, Google’s limited contact information and requirement of a physical signature seems to turn a digital matter into one that needs pen and paper to resolve. This has caused many to give up on sending notices to Google and just tolerate any misuse that takes place on Google’s servers, including Blogger.

Fortunately, there is a way around this and a means to successfully email your DMCA notices to Google. All one has to do is be a little bit creative.

Step 1: Scan Your Signature

The first step is to get your handwritten signature into your computer some way. This is because Google, even when accepting notices via email, still requires a handwritten signature most of the time.

There are several ways you can get your signature into an image file. First, you can simply sign a sheet of paper and scan it. Second, you can use a program such as Paint and draw your signature (best done with a stylus). Finally, you can take a picture of your signature with a good digital cam.

The end goal is to get your signature in clear black lettering on a white background.

Step 2: Get your DMCA Notice Ready

Next, obtain a copy of a good DMCA notice. If you wish, you can use the stock letters available on this site.

Once you have your notice, paste it into a word Processor that is capable of both importing images and exporting to PDF. You can use Microsoft Word, OpenOffice or many other applications for this purpose.

Then simply fill in the needed information as if you were just emailing it out and make sure that all of your information is accurate.

Step 3: Import Your Signature

Once you have the notice in your word processor, scroll down to where the signature goes and import your handwritten signature as an image file into the document.

Take a moment to make sure that it looks right and is ready for export.

Step 4: Export File to PDF

Export the file to a PDF using the best tools available. Though most word processors can do this export directly, if you need to print the file to a PDF you can use a free PDF creator.

Most of the details about the quality of the PDF are unimportant, just make sure that the PDF is clear enough to be read and small enough to be emailed.

Step 5: Email the PDF

Though Google does not advertise their email address on their site, they did file a designation with the U.S. Copyright Office that provides an email for submitting DMCA notices.

You can send the PDF to that email address. Simply include it as an attachment and paste the text of the notice into the email.

There is no word if that email address will work after the designated agent returns to the office.

Conclusions

For most Web hosts, sending a DMCA notice is simply a matter of having a good stock letter, dropping it into an email, filling out the necessary information and then sending it on. It is only Google, to my knowledge, that requires this kind of effort.

However, Google receives such a large number of DMCA notices that it is important to be prepared to work with them. Not only do they host Blogger, which remains one of the most common hosts for spam blogs, but they host Google Groups and other services that could host infringing content.

They are also one of the top advertising networks with Adsense and their policy for reporting infringers using Adsense closely mirrors the one for Blogger. This technique should also work for that.

Most importantly though, they are also the number one search engine in the world and the search DMCA policy also closely mirrors the other two, complete with physical signature requirement and fax/snail mail only filing. This technique should work with it as well.

Until new systems come online to help us report spam and copyright infringement to Google, this is the best technique to file a DMCA notice via email.

It is a bit complicated and convoluted, but it is certainly preferable to the delays of postal mail and the hassle of a fax.

The invite-only group is targeted at published authors to discuss “how authors and publishers can prevent electronic publications from being freely distributed by software pirates and pirate Web sites.”

If you wish to join this group, you need to contact Maria and introduce yourself, being sure to include your most recently published work. Other than those requirements, membership is free.

Also, be sure to take a look at her post about ebooks, which contains the information about the group in the callout as well as some background information on the problem.

If you are a blogger or Webmaster and wanting to discuss legal issues faced by them, be sure to visit the Performancing Legal Issues Forum where I am offering assistance for free.