3 Count: RIAA-Approved

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1: Court OKs Unmasking Identities of Copyright Scofflaws

First off today, a story that fell through the cracks. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the U.S. has upheld the RIAA’s strategy of filing lawsuits and obtaining subpoenas based on IP address information to determine the identity of alleged file sharers. A John Doe in a recent suit filed an appeal against the release of his personal information saying that he had a right to privacy and a that his file sharing was a fair use. The judge weighed his privacy against the RIAA’s need to learn his identity and sided with the RIAA, also saying that fair use is merely a defense in an infringement suit and not relevant to this matter.

2: RapidShare Not Liable For Pirating Users, Court Rules

Next up today, file hosting service Rapidshare scored a major win in Germany as an appeals court overturned a lower court ruling saying that the site was not liable for infringing works published by users and its procedure for removing infringing materials upon notification was adequate. The lower court had found Rapidshare liable but the appeals court said that the solutions for Rapidshare to prevent infringing material were not feasible.

3: Copyright Group Claims Hong Kong Wants “3-Strikes”

Finally today, the International Federation Against Copyright Theft �” Greater China (IFACT-GC) conducted a phone survey in Hong Kong and found that some 57.1% either support or strongly support a graduated response system that would disconnect file sharers after two warnings. The same survey also showed that 69.9% prefer such a system to alternative laws that would increase civil or criminal punishments. The survey also found that 60% admitted to downloading copyrighted material unlawfully and 74% of all material traded online is without the permission of the copyright holder.

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.

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