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

1: Spanish Group Looks to Sue FBI Over Megaupload File Loss

First off today, the Pirate Party in Spain is attempting to rally former Megaupload users to file a lawsuit against the FBI for seizing the site and, in the process, denying them access to their files. The FBI, which shuttered Megaupload last week on allegations of copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering, took offline millions of files that were stored on the service, at least some of which were not copyright infringing. The government has said it is unlikely users will be able to retrieve their files in the future. The Pirate Party is also looking at whether or not the seizure breached other elements of Spanish law, including misappropriation of personal data.

2: Wi-Fi Case Could Make Users Liable

Next up today, Liberty Media Holdings is suing some 13 Boston-area Internet subscribers because their Internet connection was used to illegally download the pornographic movie “Down on the Farm”. However, what separates this case from other Bittorrent lawsuits is that the plaintiffs are claiming negligence on the part of customers who have an open wifi, saying that they are at least partially responsible for any infringement that takes place over their connection due to their lack of protection on their wireless router. If the theory succeeds, it could have a drastic impact on businesses that offer public wifi as well as customers with unprotected connections.

3: B.o.B's 'Airplanes' Producers Slapped With Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

Finally today, musician B.o.B’s latest hit “Airplane” has found itself at the center of a copyright controversy. Christine Dominguez has sued the producers behind the song claiming that they unlawfully cut her out of the writing credits. According to Dominguez she worked on and was credited for a previous version of the song that was released in 2009 but, when B.o.B’s version was released, they removed her from the credits, denying her both attribution and her share of the royalties. Dominguez is suing for unfair competition, unjust enrichment, and failure to account for revenues derived from the song.

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 5 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: Megaupload Settles Copyright Suit With Porn Studio

First off today, file hosting site Megaupload has settled its ongoing case with pornography company Perfect 10. The details of the settlement were not announced but both sides, in a joint request, asked the judge to vacate and earlier victory for Perfect 10. Perfect 10 sued MegaUpload claiming that the site enabled and encrouaged users to illegally share their content. However, the case despite early victories for Perfect 10, the case had started to go bad for the company with the judge hinting that Megaupload had no obligation to hunt down suspected pirates. However, this may not be the end of Megaupload’s worries as the RIAA listed Megaupload as a company that profits from piracy in a report to the United States Trade Representative.

2: Piracy May Boost Sales, Judge Concludes

Next up today, a Spanish judge, in a case dealing with it pirated physical goods, says that it is impossible to prove how much harm the piracy caused the original copyright holder and that, in many cases, piracy may actually help sales by introducing people to new work. As such, he denied the copyright holder in that case compensation. Spanish law, however, works very differently from U.S. law where damages do not have to be proved in such cases as statutory damages apply and can range from $750 to $150,000 per infringement.

3: Copyright Industries Provided $931 Billion to U.S. Economy in 2010, According to Study

Finally today, a new study from the International Intellectual Property Alliance found that the U.S. Copyright industries added some $931 billion to the U.S. economy, or about 6.4% of the entire nation’s GDP. According to the study, some 10.6 million Americans have jobs that depend on the copyright industries, including some 5.1 million who are directly employed. Even more interesting is that the industries outperformed the U.S. economy during the recession, growing at a rate of 1.1% where the economy grew on .5% from 2007 to 2010.

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 5 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: Spanish Court Rules That Linking to Potential Copyright Infringing Material Is Not Copyright Infringement

First off today, in Spain an Appeals Court has ruled that providing a link to a copyright infringing work is not an infringement itself. The case centers around indice-web, a site that links to various P2P files available for download. It was sued by the SGAE, a Spanish collection society, only to be ruled legal in a lower court. That decision has been upheld in the more influential Court of Appeals of Barcelona. Though the ruling only applies to Spain, it may draw more fire to the country, which many already see as having laws that enable infringement.

2: Broadcasters Get A Mixed Judgment Against TVCatchup

In the UK today, broadcasters won a mixed judgement against the TV streaming and virtual DVR site TVCatchup. A judge has ruled that at least certain elements of the site are illegal and is waiting for a related case to be resolved before ruling on other matters. On the subject of broadcasts, the judge ruled TVCatchup does not reproduce substantial parts of the station’s works, but ruled the opposite on the issue of movies. The judge also ruled that TVCatchup has the right to rebroadcast works over cable but also that its mobile service is unlawful. Finally, the judge is waiting for a ruling in a case involving the Premier League dealing with boxes that decode foreign broadcasts to weigh in on the above issue of broadcasts and a “temporary copying” loophole cited by TVCatchup.

3: 200,000 BitTorrent Users Sued In The United States

Finally today, according to Torrentfreak, the number of mass lawsuits filed agianst file sharers has reached 200,000 in the last year alone. Though many of those lawsuits have been dismissed or dropped, 145,417 are still in play at this time. The lawsuits, which find copyright holders filing suit agianst thousands of “John Doe” defendants in a bid to force ISPs to turn over subscriber information, primarily exist to send “settlement letters” that have the defendant end the case for a few thousand dollars and not go through the cost of a trial and risk a larger judgement.

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 Publishers File Copyright Suit Against Grooveshark

First off today, a group of songwriters and producers have filed suit Grooveshark, saying that the music streaming service, which allows users to upload tracks for others to listen to, is violating copyright law. The lawsuit comes as Grooveshark continues to wrangle with Universal Music and not too long after they settled a similar suit with EMI. Meanwhile, other services, including Spotify and Turntable.fm, have inked deals with the record labels and are operating free, licensed streaming services that compete with Grooveshark.

2: David LaChapelle Wins Pre-Trial Ruling Against Rihanna

Next up today, David LaChapelle has won a round in his lawsuit against Rihanna and her label in the judge refusing to dismiss the case and let it go to trial. LaChapelle sued the singer in February claiming that her S&M video infringed upon his popular photographs, to which it bore a resemblance. The judge dismissed several of LaChapelle’s claims saying they were duplicates of his copyright claim but allowed the copyright claims to move forward and also threw out Rihanna’s fair use defense saying that it was “unavailing”. A pre-trial conference is scheduled for August 10.

3: Spanish Piracy Law Draws U.S. Investments: Minister

Finally today, Spain’s Culture Minister has said that, thanks in part to a new anti-piracy law that will take effect next months, many U.S. and other foreign companies are looking to invest in Spain and set up legal alternatives. According to the minister, many organizations were planning on withdrawing from Spain, which has a piracy rate around 80%, because the investment was not worthwhile. However, if they new anti-piracy law proves effective, they are preparing to move in and create new services within the country.

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.

It is Friday again and that means it’s time for yet another edition of the Copyright 2.0 Show.

This week it is a very special show as Patrick reaches his 100th episode as co-host of the Copyright 2.0 Show. To commemorate this occasion Patrick and I not only plow through this week’s news, but also take a look back at his first episode, 84, and see how much (or how little, things have changed in the past two-plus years. (Spoiler Alert: Not a lot…)

This week’s stories include:

• Google “Censors” Pirate Keywords
• Oracle and Google Continue Spat Over Java Code
• Perfect 10 Sues MegaUpload
• Spanish Copyright Reform Makes Comeback
• MPAA/BREIN Shut Down 50 Bittorrent Sites
• And Much 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

About the Hosts

Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey (@plagiarismtoday) is the Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today (Hint: You’re there now) and works as a copyright and plagiarism consultant. Though not an attorney, he has resolved over 700 cases of plagiarism involving his own work and has helped countless others protect their work and develop strategies for making their content work as hard as possible toward their goals.

Patrick O’Keefe

Patrick O’Keefe (@iFroggy) is the owner of the iFroggy Network, a network of websites covering various interests. He’s the author of the book “Managing Online Forums,” a practical guide to managing online communities and social spaces. He maintains a blog about online community management at ManagingCommunities.com and a personal blog at patrickokeefe.com.

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

1: Google Censors Piracy-Related Terms from Search Tools

First off today, Google recently made one of its promised changes to appease copyright holders and has removed many bittorrent and piracy-related queries from autosuggest and its instant searches. Though you can still search for these terms and produce results, they will not appear as you type in the Google search box. Currently blocked terms include phrases such as “bittorrent” “torrent”, “rapidshare” and “utorrent”, many of which are the names of companies or products, as well as terms routinely associated with piracy searches.

2: Law to Shutdown P2P Sites Resurrected By Spanish Coalition

Next up today, Spain’s controversial file sharing law, which will make it easier for copyright holders to target and shut down websites they believe are built for the purpose of piracy, will be making another appearance before Spanish Parliament. The bill, on its first vote, was shot down by a narrow margine, hard on the heels of the Wikileaks revelation that the law was written under pressure from U.S. interests. The new bill does make some minor changes, such as increasing judicial oversight, but it is largely the same as the earlier bill, but it came about after months of negotiations from the various parties supporting the bill.

3: Oops: No copied Java code or weapons of mass destruction found in Android

Finally today, blogger Florian Mueller’s allegations that Google had illegally copied code from Java in making its Android operating system have been refuted by Ed Burnette, which showed that the code that was allegedly infringing was not actually shipped with the Android operating system and, instead, was used solely for testing purposes. Though there was an odd licensing mistake in one file, it is a far cry from Mueller’s original claim that this bolstered Oracle’s case against Google by finding more infringements than they had alleged in their ongoing lawsuit.

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.

It is Friday Wednesday again and that means that it is time for another episode of the Copyright 2.0 Show.

This episode is a bit late, as in almost two weeks late. This episode was recovered on December 22nd, 2010 and due to holidays and illness is just getting released now. To make matters worse for this episode, it was recording during the Great Skype Outage of 2010, meaning we had to fall back to other recording methods.

However, we have pulled through and knocked out one of the best holiday shows around with a lot of new material to cover. But if you want to get some more up to date news, we’ll be recording a new episode of the Copyright 2.0 Show in about an hour at 6 PM ET at this address, so you can join us live.

With that being said, here’s what this episode covered.

This week’s stories include:

• Wikileaks May Have Killed Spanish Copyright Reform
• Mass P2P Lawsuits Suffer Major Setback
• ICE Domain Seizures Face Criticism
• 50 Cents Sued for Copyright Infringement
• MPAA Shuts Down 29 Sites
• New Register of Copyrights Announced
• A Copyright Battle Over a Life-Sized Gundam

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

Show Notes

About the Hosts

Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey (@plagiarismtoday) is the Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today (Hint: You’re there now) and works as a copyright and plagiarism consultant. Though not an attorney, he has resolved over 700 cases of plagiarism involving his own work and has helped countless others protect their work and develop strategies for making their content work as hard as possible toward their goals.

Patrick O’Keefe

Patrick O’Keefe (@iFroggy) is the owner of the iFroggy Network, a network of websites covering various interests. He’s the author of the book “Managing Online Forums,” a practical guide to managing online communities and social spaces. He maintains a blog about online community management at ManagingCommunities.com and a personal blog at patrickokeefe.com.

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

1: Major File-Sharing Sites Go Dark To Protest Anti-Download Law

First off today, as Spain’s government prepares to debate revisions to its copyright laws that may make it illegal to host a file sharing site, many of the country’s most popular sites protested the laws by replacing their homepages with a black page with a warning that it might be the future of those sites if the law is passed. The law in question, the Sustainable Economy Law, will likely pass today and close a loophole that allowed file sharing sites to operate within the country so long as they meet certain criteria, including not earning a profit.

2: US Gov Spending Millions to Teach Foreign Judges About Copyright

Next up today, the U.S. Government, as well as other nations, will be spending millions of dollars in 2011 to educate judges and other officials about intellectual property law. The money will go to Interpol as well as countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Philippines that are seeking to crack down on intellectual property issues.

3: DiMA reacts to CRB’s proposals for Internet radio performance royalties

Finally today, in a story that I missed, the Copyright Royalty Board in the U.S. declined to raise royalty rates for Internet streaming sites, despite please from royalty collecting services such as Soundexchange. The Digital Media Association (DiMA), an organization that represents online music streaming services and retailers, applauded the decision citing the more than three-fold increase in royalties from the past three years.

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: Viacom Replays Copyright Claims in YouTube Appeal

First off today, as was widely expected, Viacom filed its appeal in the YouTube case on Friday, taking the matter before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Viacom sued YouTube and its parent company, Google, claiming that the site rose to prominence by ignoring and even encouraging piracy. However, the lower court threw the case out saying the site qualified for safe harbor protections for removing works when notified. However, Viacom believes that YouTube does not qualify for such protections due to their encouragement of piracy and willingness to turn a blind eye to it.

2: LimeWire to Shut Down Completely on Dec. 31

LimeWire, which recently lost its suit to the RIAA, which accused it of enabling massive amounts of copyright infringement via its file sharing software, has decided to shut its doors on December 31. The move comes after an injunction barred LimeWire from enabling file sharing over its software, which it complied with in October. The company had planned to launch a legal music service but it seems that those plans have been scrapped as well.

3: Wikileaks Cables Reveal That the US Wrote Spain’s Proposed Copyright Law

Finally today, as the Wikileaks cable scandal is breaking, diplomatic cables between the U.S. and its Spanish embassy seem to show that U.S. trade representatives effectively wrote the new proposed copyright law in Spain, which is due up for debate shortly and is aimed at making file sharing sites illegal. It remains to be seen if and how this revelation will affect the debate but there’s already been a great deal of conversation about it on the Web.

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.

It is Friday again and that means that it is time for another episode of the Copyright 2.0 Show.

It was a busy week for copyright news with a lot of major stories taking place and some of the bigger ongoing dramas receiving updates. This episode has a decidedly international flavor with news from France, the UK, Spain, Australia and, closest to the U.S., Canada.

If you want to go all around the copyright world in an hour, this is definitely the podcast for you.

This week’s stories include:

• France’s Hadopi “Three Strikes” Law Ramps Up
• UK Law Firm Leaks Emails, Data on Alleged Pirates
• DDOS Targets Australian Anti-Piracy Group
• EU Parliament Seeks to Create Pan-EU Copyright Law
• Google Wins YouTube Case in Spain
• Are Royalties Keeping Streaming Music Out of Canada?

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

Show Notes

About the Hosts

Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey (@plagiarismtoday) is the Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today (Hint: You’re there now) and works as a copyright and plagiarism consultant. Though not an attorney, he has resolved over 700 cases of plagiarism involving his own work and has helped countless others protect their work and develop strategies for making their content work as hard as possible toward their goals.

Patrick O’Keefe

Patrick O’Keefe (@iFroggy) is the owner of the iFroggy Network, a network of websites covering various interests. He’s the author of the book “Managing Online Forums,” a practical guide to managing online communities and social spaces. He maintains a blog about online community management at ManagingCommunities.com and a personal blog at patrickokeefe.com.