3 Count: Mad as Hell

This is 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 or just follow me on Twitter at @plagiarismtoday.

1: Associated Press cuts fees, acts to protect copyrights

First off today, the Associated Press is “Mad as Hell” and is going on the offensive against those who it says are using their work, “under some very misguided, unfounded legal theories.” The move also comes as the AP is reducing its fees to newspapers by another $35 million dollars, on top of a $30 million reduction that took effect this year.

It is unclear at this time exactly how they will engage in this fight or exactly what sites they are talking about, but it is clear that the AP will be ramping up their efforts in the coming months to combat what they see as piracy.

2: Congress looks abroad to curb piracy

Next up, even as the manhunt for the leaker of the new Wolverine movie continues, the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs held a meeting with representatives from the movie industry about how to help curb piracy across the world.

The result of these conversations is a promise by the committee to work more closely with other nations to help them buttress any weak spots in their copyright laws as well as potentially an effort to incorporate more IP-related issues onto free trade agreements.

Though obviously nothing solid was promised in the meeting, these types of meetings can illustrate the future direction for such matters.

3: New Copyright Law Causes Uproar Among Bloggers, Internet Companies

South Korea, long-heralded as one of the most wired nations, has passed a tough new anti-piracy law that allows the government to shut down, for up to six months, message boards and other sites that post copyright infringing material (after two warnings) and also disconnect file sharers from the Web.

A related bill has also called for services to require real names of posters before allowing them to host a site, meaning that bloggers will have to have their real names available, at least to the government.

Both of these bills go well beyond the controversial Section 92a law that was discarded in New Zealand due to backlash from ISPs and users. The votes on these bills were close, but outcries of bloggers and others was not enough, in this case, to turn the tide.

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.

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