3 Count: Sharing is Caring

This is the first in a new daily column on Plagiarism Today where the site brings you three of the days biggest, most important copyright and plagiarism news links. If you want to offer your feedback on the column, use the contact form above or just follow me on Twitter at @plagiarismtoday.

1: All Shook Up: Small Traders Hit by Music Snoops

Things are quickly turning ugly in the United Kingdom as music copyright holders, spearheaded by the Performing Rights Society for Music (PRS) have been hitting up every smaller and smaller business for licensing rights. The organization, which more typically obtains royalties for music played in clubs and bars, has been turning its sights to smaller business, including business with just one person working.

Though most of the truly outrageous claims have been dropped, businesses and organizations that have music playing where multiple people can hear it, even if it just an audience of employees, can likely expect some level of “hounding” from the PRS soon.

2: FT.com vs. Blackstone

Speaking of businesses sharing access to copyrighted works, the Financial Times has sued the asset management firm the Blackstone Group alleging that the company had distributed login information for their Web site, for which subscriptions can run up to $300 per year for their premium service. According to the Times, a single login at Blackstone had been accessing thousands and thousands of articles on the site in a “fraud” that had possibly been going on since 2002.

The suit doesn’t say exactly how much the company wants in damages but it does raise some interesting question for other login-sharing services, such as Bugmenot.

3: EU Plots Pirate Bay Ban and Piracy Clampdown

Finally in today’s 3 count, Torrent freak has an article on a new EU report that provides a wide variety of proposals on how to deal with piracy in the EU. It includes, among other things, the use of a graduated response (known as “three strikes” system in the U.S.) to disconnect file sharers and ISP filtering of infringing content/sites.

The report, which is due for a vote in the coming weeks, will no doubt be controversial in the EU, which has twice voted down the graduated response system.

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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