3 Count: Steady Matey

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: Pirate Bay acquisition still on track

First off today, there were reports swirling that Global Gaming Factory (GGF) was backpedaling from its plan to purchase the Pirate Bay, saying that the deal would only go through if the site could be turned into a legal service.

However, GGF issued a statement saying that the deal is going through as planned, that the funding is in place and the final hurdle is the approval of shareholders, which is something this deal has always required.

In short, The Pirate Bay deal, according to GGF is on track and, even if the music industry goes after the money they pay for the site, GGF has said that is not something they have anything to do with.

2: Jackson Browne, Republicans Settle Copyright Case

Next up, musician Jackson Browne and the Republican Party have settled their copyright disagreement. The two found themselves at odds with the party used his song “Running on Empty” in a commercial for the 2008 McCain campaign. This prompted Browne to file the suit, which was just settled.

Lawyers for the Republicans had been trying to get the suit tossed out but, after every attempt so far has failed, they agreed to settle the case for an undisclosed amount of money and a public apology.

Browne said the he would “absolutely” take similar action against anyone who used his work without permission, including candidates and parties he agreed with.

3: Amazon deal to reprint rare books

Finally today, Amazon’ “Surge” print-on-demand service has partnered with the University of Michigan to provide reprints of 400,000 rare, but public domain, books.

The move follows similar partnerships with other Universities and provides the college with assistance in digitizing the books in question in exchange for the ability to make and sell printed copies of them.

The softcover copies will cost between $10 and $45 and will be available through Amazon’s site.

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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