3 Count: Proxy Battles

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1: Pirate Party UK To Be Sued By Music Copyright Holders

First off today, Max Smolaks at TechWeek Europe writes that the UK Pirate Party may be sued by the record label BPI over a Pirate Bay proxy that the organization runs. The Pirate Bay, along with other Bittorrent sites, were ordered blocked in the UK by court orders but Pirate Party UK (PPUK) created a proxy that allows users to bypass that block.

Record label BPI is said to be preparing its lawyers to file suit against PPUK though it’s unclear if providing such a proxy is illegal. The Pirate Bay was blocked in April though, by July, file sharing levels had returned to normal thanks in large part to proxy services like this one. PPUK is holding a fundraising campaign in hopes of fighting the lawsuit.

2: Pirate Bay Proxy Loses Domain Name to Anti-Piracy Boss

Next up today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that Tim Kuik, the head of the Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, has won the rights the domain timkuik.org, which was being used as a proxy to The Pirate Bay, following a court-ordered blocking of the site spearheaded by BREIN itself.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which oversees domain disputes, said that the criticism in using the domain in that matter did not trump the trademark issues. However, despite the victory, other domains with Tim Kuik’s name in it are still in use as Pirate Bay proxies, though there may be similar challenges against them. (H/T @chrismatthieu)

3: Man Charges Porn Trolling Firm Prenda Law with Identity Theft

Finally today, Timothy Lee at Ars Technica reports that Prenda law, a law firm commonly associated with mass piracy litigation, is facing allegations of identity theft. Alan Cooper, a Minnesota man, says that the firm set up a shell company, AF Holdings, and listed him as the firm’s CEO without his knowledge or consent.

Cooper is a caretaker for property owned by John Steele, a lawyer associated with the firm and learned later that Steele and Prenda Law were filing lawsuits on behalf of AF Holdings, a company that happened to have CEO of the same name. Worried he might get into legal trouble, Cooper hired an attorney, which wrote a letter on his behalf to the judge in an ongoing case involving AF Holdings as a plaintiff. An attorney for AF Holdings has responded to Cooper’s letter, denying the allegations but failed to disclose who is the CEO fo AF Holdings. The judge is yet to respond to the letter.

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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