3 Count: Second Front

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1: Writers Sue US University Libraries for Copyright Infringement

First off today, the Authors Guild, the Australian Society of Authors, the Union Des Écrivaines et des Écrivains Québécois and eight individual authors have filed suit against Michigan, California, Wisconsin, Indiana and Cornell universities as well as HathiTrust for copyright infringement. According to the suit, the universities received unauthorized digital scans of their library’s books and pooled their digital libraries together into the HathiTrust collection. The lawsuit also objects to the unversities’ plans to make orphan works, meaning works where the copyright holder can not be identified, available to students and faculty. HathiTrust is a partnership with some 50 libraries, which currently has over 9.5 million digitized books.

2: Google Pressed to Block Rogue Websites

Next up today, Jeremy Hunt, the UK’s Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, is expected to give a speech tomorrow that calls on search engines, including Google, to do more to block pirate websites from their rankings. Hunt is also expected to say that his government is prepared to legislate on the issue if search engines fail to take reasonable steps on their own. This comes after Google sent a press release touting advancements in copyright responsibility and efforts in the UK to block sites as the ISP level were deemed to be unworkable.

3: Sanctioned: P2P Lawyer Fined $10,000 for “Staggering Chutzpah”

Finally today, Evan Stone, a P2P attorney specializing in amine, has been sanctioned by the court to the tune of $10,000. The reason is because Stone, who filed a lawsuit against hundreds of “Doe” defendants he accused of sharing movies online, sent subpoenas without court approval. The judge in the case had ordered Stone not to send subpoenas but, instead asked the ISPs involved to hold on to the information while the court rules on whether or not he should be allowed to get the information. Stone sent the subpoenas anyway and apparently reached a settlement with at least some of the defendants, despite the fact he wasn’t supposed to have access to the information. The case involved had been dropped with prejudice by Stone, who said that the subpoena process was taking too long.

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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