3 Count: TV Now Gone

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1: Optus Halts TV Now After Court Loss

First off today, Lucy Battersby of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that Australian cell phone network Optus has suspended its TV Now service following a loss at the appeals court level in its legal battle against various sports leagues in the nation and competing service Telstra. The group sued Optus claiming that that it’s TV Now service, which functioned like a DVR streaming broadcast TV to its user’s phones, violated the copyright the leagues held in their matches and endangered and exclusive licensing deal signed between the leagues and Telstra. The lower court sided with Optus saying that its users were solely responsible for the streaming but the three-judge panel at the appeals level ruled both Optus and its users shared responsibility, opening up the door to damages and forcing Optus to shut down the service. Optus is expected to appeal to the nation’s High Court.

2: Testimony Weakens Google’s Copyright Defense in Java Joust

Next up today, Erika Morphy of the E-Commerce Times writes that Google may have suffered a series of setbacks in its case against Oracle. Oracle sued Google claiming that it violated both patents and copyrights held by the company when developing the JAVA implementation used in the Android operating system. The first part of the ongoing trial is focusing on the copyright issues and several Google employees testified, saying that Google sought a partnership with Sun Microsystems, then the owner of JAVA, that engineers with JAVA experience were told they couldn’t copy code but could use what was “in their head” and that at leas one person removed code from Android after Oracle filed suit. However, Google raised an issue of its own, indicating that the code in the dispute had not been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, meaning it can not be sued over. The copyright portion of the trial is wrapping up and the patent portion is expected to begin soon.

3: The Copyright Office Proposes to Raise Registration Fees; Care to Comment?

Finally today, Photo District News is reporting that the U.S. Copyright Office is seeking comment on a proposed rate hike that would increase the cost of registration from $35 to $65 when filed electronically and from $64 to $100 when filed via paper. Though registrations are not required to obtain copyright protection, they are required to file suit and obtain statutory damages. Many fear that the steep rate hike could reduce the number of content creators who register their work. Comments from the public are being accepted through May 14.

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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