3 Count: Megaboxed

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1: Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom Plans Music Venture, Hints at Relaunch

First off today, The Economic Times is reporting that Kim Dotcom has tweeted promises to launch his new “Megabox” service sometime later this year. The service, according to Dotcom, will give musicians a way to promote and distribute their music while keeping some 90% of their earnings, though it’s unclear just how the service plans on earning revenue. Dotcom is the owner of Megaupload, a site that was seized and had its employees, including Dotcom, arrested for alleged piracy and copyright infringement. Dotcom is facing extradition to the U.S. though errors made on the warrants have caused his extradition hearing to be pushed back into March. Currently, both Dotcom and Megaupload have had all of their assets frozen pending resolution of the case.

2: German High Court Rules ISPs Must Disclose Identities of Illegal Filesharers To Copyright Holders

Next up today, Christian Schober of Billboard reports that Germany’s highest court has ruled in favor of an independent music label and ordered local ISPs to turn over information about alleged file sharers. Previously, such an order was only applicable to cases of “commercial extent” or when a work was shared for a profit but the new ruling makes it so that any unlawful distribution is grounds for ISPs to be compelled to turn over subscriber data. The decision was made in favor of the independent distributor Tonpool, which had filed a lawsuit over the song “Bitte hör nicht auf zu träumen” by Xavier Naidoo, which was downloaded via file sharing sites in 2011.

3: Google Can Appeal Class Certification in Books Case

Finally today, Jeff John Roberts of PaidContent writes that Google has been granted an opportunity to appeal the class action status of its case against the Authors Guild over Google Book Search. The Authors Guild was granted class action status in May, enabling the guild to have groups of authors sue at once rather than individually. The Authors Guild sued Google alleging that Google’s scanning and indexing of books, part of its Google Book Search project, was an infringement. The sides reached two separate agreements to settle the case, both of which were thrown out as being overly broad. However, the appeal puts the Second Circuit in a bit of an odd position. The judge in the case, Judge Denny Chin, has since moved up to the Circuit Court though he retains control of the case in the lower court since it began before he was promoted. As such, the case will be heard by a two-judge panel rather than the usual three.

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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