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

1: New Lawsuit Means All Major Labels Are Suing Grooveshark

First off today, EMI, the fourth and smallest of the “big four” record labels, has filed suit against music streaming service Grooveshark for breach of contract. Grooveshark, which was already being sued by the other three labels (Universal, Warner and Sony) had struck a deal to license EMI’s music through their service. However, according to EMI, Grooveshark has not paid any royalties nor have they issued any accounting statements. Grooveshark has said that this is a “contract dispute” that they hope to have resolved soon.

2: For Americans, Digital Piracy is a Family Thing

Next up today, a study by the American Assembly, which is affiliated with Columbia University, found that three quarters of Americans surveyed believed that sharing music with family members was acceptable and that more than half felt the same about sharing with friends. However, only 16 percent thought it was acceptable to share in a widespread manner for commercial gain. Respondents were split almost evenly on punishments for file downloading with a little under half saying there should be none. Those who did favor punishments favored lighter ones such as warnings and small fines.

3: Is Copyright Against Your Religion?

Finally today, in Sweden the government has officially recognized Kopimism as an official religion. Kopimism, which was founded by 19-year-old philosophy student Isaac Gerson, believes that “the sharing of information is the most beautiful thing in the world”, including file sharing. However, the move is unlikely to have any practical impact as it does nothing to make file sharing legal. However, the movement has drawn a lot of attention to the Church of Kopimism’s site, which is currently accepting new follower registrations via a form.

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.

1: Ustream Sued By Boxing Promoter Over Pirated Broadcast

First off today, livestreaming site Ustream is in legal hot water after being sued by a boxing promotional company owned by Roy Jones Jr., Square Ring Inc., after a recent pay-per-view match between Roy Jones Jr. and Omar Sheika was streamed for free to 2,300+ users on the site.

Ustream has said they believe that the DMCA protects them in this case and that the lawsuit is without merit, but they did say that they are taking both short term and long term steps to improve their copyright enforcement on the site.

This follows on the heels of a major overhaul at Ustream’s competitor, Justin.tv, to filter out and block copyrighted video from being played on the site.

2: Judge reject’s Universal’s bid to end Redbox suit

Next up, the ongoing dispute between DVD rental kiosk maker Redbox, which is owned by Coinstar, and the movie studios is, well, ongoing. However, the copyright element of it seems to have been removed at this time.

Redbox sued Universal and Fox for copyright misuse and antitrust violations for plans to withhold new releases for 45 days from the company in a bid to increase more lucrative home sales. The movie studios have not been too pleased with the success of Redbox, which places small red DVD rental kiosks in grocery stories and other locations, as it feels the service undercuts their DVD sales by renting them for a dollar per day.

The judge, however, dismissed the copyright misuse claims, the reason being that there is no such thing as a copyright misuse lawsuit. Copyright misuse is a defense against copyright infringement, not an action for a suit. However, the judge has allowed the antitrust claims to move forward, meaning that this fight has likely just started.

3: P2P Not to Blame for Content Industry Failures Says EU

Finally today, a recent study in the EU has released some numbers that will be unnerving to those in the content industries. According to the report, barely 5% of Web users paid for content within the last three months and the news among non-payers is not very promising.

Of those, about half said they would consider paying if prices were lowered, quality were raised and/or selection improved. However, 80% said that they would not pay even if all of the free options disappeared,

This has to make music and movie studios nervous as the former begins to dabble with “all you can eat” approaches to music, especially in the EU, in hopes of turning people into legitimate customers, even at drastically reduced prices.

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.

I’m announcing the beginning of a long-term project today. My goal is to send out a short survey to as many DMCA agents as possible (my target number is 100 for the first round) to get their feedback on best practices when submitting a notice as well as how DMCA notices are handled.

The survey will be anonymous, I will not be using the information to evaluate any single host’s practices, but instead will be gathering broad data about the types of practices that are most common and are preferred.

I am seeking input from others about the types of questions I should ask in this survey. I wish to keep it short, underneath 2 minutes or so for them to take, but I want to make sure I hit the topics that everyone is interested in.

Here’s a list of the topics I’m currently looking at:

1. Methods by which a DMCA notice can be filed
2. The parties that review a DMCA notice
3. How closely the DMCA procedures are followed
4. How the takedown is acheived
5. Privacy issues involving personal information in the notice
6. Time frame for resolution
7. Prevalence of counter-notices

If anyone has any additional thoughts, suggestions or ideas for this survey, please let me know. I am in the process of compiling it. I will likely post a link to a draft on my Twitter account later this week and begin the process of mailing the agents to invite them toward the end of the week.

Your input will be greatly appreciated.

Hopefully we will have the results sometime later this month or early May.

I have prepared a very short (6 question) survey that, if you have a minute to spare, I would greatly appreciate you taking the time to fill out. The survey is completely anonymous and does not ask any personal information at all.

My thanks to everyone who supports this site and has helped make it great over the past three years. With your feedback, I hope to greatly improve Plagiarism Today in the weeks and months to come.

If you have any specific thoughts or suggestions, please feel free to use the contact link above or send me an email to jonathan at plagiarismtoday dot com.

Finally, I want to encourage everyone to join the Facebook group and continue to help spread the word any way you can.

Thank you all for your help.