3 Count: Shepard Pie

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1: Shepard Fairey Pleads Guilty Over Obama ‘Hope’ Image

First off today, artist Shepard Fairey has plead guilty to criminal contempt of court in the last element of his copyright case against the Associated Press over the Obama “Hope” poster. Fairey, who created the iconic poster, based it off an image from the Associated Press. The AP threatened to sue, prompting Fairey to sue first and then be countersued. However, in the evidence-gathering phase Fairey not only destroyed some evidence but lied about which photo the poster was based on in a bid to bolster his case. When the lies were exposed, the case fell apart, leading to a largely undisclosed settlement. Fairey faced criminal contempt charges, which he has now plead guilty to. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 6 months in jail and the prosecutor is planning on seeking some jail time in the case. Fairey will be sentenced July 16.

2: Swedish Piracy Crackdown: #2 Torrent Site Calls It Quits

Next up today, the Swedish Bittorrent site Tankafetast, the second most popular such site in the country, has shut down. The move follows a ruling in the Swedish Supreme Court where, by refusing to hear the appeal in The Pirate Bay case, is allowing the verdicts against the four founders to stand. Entertainment industry lawyers had announced that this would mark a new legal push against Bittorrent sites in the country, which in part lead to this shutdown. The Pirate Bay, in the meantime, remains functional despite the rulings.

3: Flickr Disables Pinterest Pins on Copyrighted Images

Finally today, popular photo sharing service Flickr has blocked Pinterest users from “pinning” images that are labeled as “all rights reserved”. The move comes as Pinterest, a social networking site that encourages users to “pin” various images found across the Web, has been in the center of a copyright controversy over its practices. Last week the company introduced a line of HTML code to block pinning in response to this backlash and Flickr has, in turn, added that code to all pages for images that are not under a Creative Commons or other open license. Flickr, before the move, was the third most popular source of pins for Pinterest,

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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