1: AP alleges copyright infringement of Obama image

The famous and ubiquitous Obama “Hope” poster has become the subject of a lawsuit as the Associated Press, who claims to hold the copyright in the original photograph, has sued Shepard Fairey, the street artist behind the iconic poster.

The poster, which became a de facto symbol of the Obama campaign, was originally thought to be based upon a Reuters photo. Fairey is being represented by the Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University, who believes that fair use will protect Fairey’s right to use the image in the manner he did.

2: Judge Tells UMG: No, You Cannot Sue Veoh’s Investors For Copyright Infringement

Universal suffered another set back in its lawsuit against Veoh as the judge threw out a portion of the suit that named several investors in the site as defendants. The judge had already declined a motion for summary judgement, saying that “safe harbor” provisions in the DMCA applied to Veoh even though the site altered the videos before publishing them to the Web.

The judge found that, since Veoh has not been found guilty of doing anything infringing, Universal can not sue the investors. This is in contrast to the Napster case, where the investor was successfully sued after keeping the service open after it had been found to be infringing.

3: TorrentSpy renews legal campaign against MPAA

Nearly a year after it found itself on the wrong end of a $100 million judgment against the MPAA, Torrentspy has filed an appeal in the case claiming that they were unfairly denied access to a trial and were mandated to take actions that violated user privacy.

The site had defied a court order to turn over user data and various logs in part by blocking traffic from within the U.S. Torrentspy, which is now closed, has not indicated if they have any plans to reopen should they win their appeal.

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 below or send me an email using the contact form above. I hope to hear from you.

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