3 Count: Fighting Words

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1: Pirate Bay: The RIAA Is Delusional and Must Be Stopped

First off today, RIAA Senior Executive Vice President of the RIAA, Mitch Glazier, posted a blog entry on the RIAA site bashing the recent move by The Pirate Bay to redirect their domain name to the “.se” extension rather than the “.com”. According to Glazier, the move was an attempt to get around U.S. law and points to the need for legislation to target foreign sites. This, in turn, prompted a response from “Winston” at The Pirate Bay saying that the RIAA is “delusional” and “like a kid screaming for candy”. There is no word if the RIAA is planning on offering up a rebuttal to Winston’s commentary.

2: Roscoe's on a Six-Figure Hook for Copyright Case/h4>

Next up today, Long Beach, CA restaurant Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles has been ordered to pay nearly $200,000 to the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) for playing music in their establishment without a license. For years ASCAP had asked the restaurant to sign an agreement but the restaurant steadfastly refused. A private investigator went in, observed both a live act playing covers and music playing over the loudspeaker, prompting ASCAP to sue over eight songs allegedly played. The district court ordered the restaurant to pay nearly $200,000 in the case, including $36,000 in damages and $162,728 in attorney’s fees. The restaurant appealed, arguing that the investigator was not an expert. However, the Ninth Circuit ruled that identifying popular music does not require you to be an expert and upheld the lower court ruling, adding that the high attorney’s fees are due largely to the restaurant’s attempts at hiding its corporate structure.

3: Princess Demands Billions for ‘Titanic’ Copyright Infringement

Finally today, in a bizarre copyright case an Imperial Beach woman named Princess Samantha Kennedy claims that the 1997 movie Titanic was based on her unpublished biography, claiming that characters in the movie are based upon her family members, even though none perished on the Titanic or were even aboard it. Kennedy claims that she had not been in a movie theater since 1995 and only become aware of the similarities recently. She is asking for all copies of the movie to be destroyed as well as all of the profits from the film.

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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