3 Count: Pirate Pay

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

1: Judge Rules Largely for GSU in Copyright Case

First off today, Bill Rankin of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Georgie State University has largely won its case against various publishers, including Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and SAGE Publications, over its electronic lending program. The judge in the case ruled that some 69 of 74 alleged infringements by the university qualified for fair use. The system at GSU allows professors to share excerpts of textbooks with students electronically, however, in the five cases where infringement was found, professors had shared whole chapters and not just short excerpts. This case has been widely watched by other colleges hoping to get guidance on fair use in an educational setting.

2: Megaupload Files Motion to Delay Civil Suit

Next up today, Jeremy Kirk at Computerworld writes that Megaupload has filed a motion in its civil case to delay the case from proceeding. In March the company was sued by Microhits and Valcom, two smaller content owners, for alleged copyright infringement of their content. However, Megaupload had been seized and shuttered in January of that year after a raid resulted in the arrest of many of the company’s employees, including its founder Kim Dotcom. Megaupload said in its filing that having the civil and the criminal case unfold in parallel could result in an unfair burden on their criminal defense.

3: Russian Innovators Pursue Prototype to Prevent Piracy

Finally today, Elena Shipilova at Russia Beyond the Headlines reports that Pirate Pay, a small company from Russia, claims that it has found a way to disrupt Bittorrent swarms and prevent illegal downloads from taking place. Though the company keeps the method behind its product a secret, it claims that it disrupted and prevented some 44,000 downloads of the Russian film “Vysotsky. Thanks to God, I’m Alive”. THe company is seeking to raise capital to do further development and, in the meantime, reportedly charges between $12,000 and $50,000 to mount a defense.

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.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.