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1: Instagram Says it Now Has the Right to Sell your Photos

First off today, Declan McCullagh at CNet reports that Instagram has changed its intellectual property policy and, in it, Instagram’s owners, Facebook, claim they have a perpetual right to licenses all public Instagram images to anyone else for any purpose, including advertising. This, theoretically, opens the doors for Instagram photos to be used in advertisements without permission.

The move has prompted a sharp backlash from the service’s users and rights organizations, such as the EFF claim that the way the new terms are written make it difficult, if not impossible for users to give informed consent.

The terms also do not have a clear clause to terminate Facebook’s rights to your images upon deleting your account. The terms of service are scheduled to take effect January 16.

2: Alicia Keys Sued Over ‘Girl on Fire’: Is It Based on a Blogger’s Ear?

Next up today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter writes that Alica Keys has been sued by songwriter Earl Shuman, who claims Keys’ song “Girl on Fire” is based on his song “Lonely Boy”. Gardner’s song was recorded by Eddie Holman as “Hey There Lonely Girl”, which reached number 2 on the Billboard charts in 1970.

The case first came to light in November when a blogger, Roger Friedman, noted a similarity between the two songs and said he believed it was an uncredited sample. Shuman responded to the post and said he had a “good lawyer” working on the case and cited the blog post in his filing.

However, beyond the discussion of the post, there’s few details in the lawsuit about the similarities between the two songs, other than allegations of a drum sample. Keys has had no comment on the lawsuit.

3: Canadian ISP Defends Decision Not To Oppose BitTorrent Copyright Trolls

Finally today, Enigmax at Torrentfreak writes that Canadian ISP TekSavvy will not intervene on behalf of its users in the face of a mass Bittorrent lawsuit filed by Voltage Pictures.

TekSavvy had been hit with a request for contact information for some 2,000 IP addresses on its network and had already notified some 1,100 customers that their info may be turned over to the movie studio. However, with the company’s transparency, many felt that they would fight the subpoena but, in court, the company did not and, instead, only sought more time to finis notifying its customers.

Acorrding to TekSavvy’s CEO, Marc Gaudrault, the reason is the copyright modernization act in Canada, which he claims makes it risky for ISPs to interfere on behalf of customers in these matters. According to Gaudrault, the law provides the company protection as a mere conduit but any action beyond that puts them in jeopardy of liability. The hearing will reconvene on January 14, 2013.

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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