3 Count: Two Stooges

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Hollywood Studios Lose iiNet Download Case

First off today, ABC News reports that the Australian high court has ruled 5-0 that local ISP iiNet is not responsible for illegal downloads by its users. The case was brought by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), which argued that the ISP had not done enough to prevent piracy on its service. The High Court agreed with the lower court ruling and found that iiNet did not have any reasonable means of preventing piracy. AFACT has promised to move forward with lobbying efforts to alter copyright law in Australia.

2: YouTube Faces Massive Music Royalty Bill in German Copyright Case

Next up today, Zack Whittaker at ZdNet reports that YouTube has lost a potentially major court case in Germany and may be facing a very high bill for royalties. In the case, GEMA, a music royalty collection society in the country, sued Google-owned YouTube over musical content uploaded to the service without authorization. The judge ruled that YouTube’s efforts to block copyrighted content, including its filters, were inadequate and that it’s responsible for the infringing material uploaded. YouTube is widely expected to appeal the decision.

3: ‘Three Stooges’ Porn Parody Prompts Legal War of Words

Finally today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter writes that C3, a company first founded by the original Three Stooges after they left Columbia Pictures, is engaged in a war of words with Vivid Entertainment, the creators of porn parody “Not the Three Stooges XXX”. C3, having recently been behind the release of a reboot of the Three Stooges franchise, is upset about the parody and seems to be making arguments against it that point to possible copyright, trademark and misappropriation of likeness claims. This would be the first major challenge against such a porn parody. Such parodies have been popular for the last 40 years and have seen a resurgence in the past few years as porn studios seek to battle free content online, both legal and infringing.

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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