3 Count: Mockingbird Blues

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

1: Harper Lee Sues Literary Agent Over ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Rights

First off today, Carolyn Kellog at The LA Times reports that Harper lee, the author of the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” has filed a lawsuit against her former literary agent seeking to reclaim rights in the famous novel.

According to Lee, in 2007 she had recently suffered a stroke when she signed over the rights to her agent, Samuel Pinkus and his agency, Keystone Literary. According to the lawsuit, Lee was infirm at the time and had no idea she had just signed over her copyright.

Lee’s lawsuit also claims that she successfully had Pinkus discharged as her literary agent last year though he has continued to collect her royalties. Pinkus became Lee’s agent after her longtime agent fell ill and several of his clients, including Lee, were transfered to Pinkus, who is the son-in-law of the former agent.

2: Aereo Files Suit Against CBS to Head off Second Copyright Claim from Network

next up today, Greg Sandoval at The Verge reports that TV streaming service Aereo has filed a lawsuit against CBS in an attempt to head off another lawsuit from the TV network.

Aereo, a service that captures over the air broadcast signals and makes them available for streaming and recording on a variety of devices, was sued by CBS and other broadcasters who claimed it was copyright infringing. However, Aereo won a victory when a district court and an appeals court both refused to grant an injunction against the service, saying that Aereo’s use of tiny antennas, one per customer, meant that it was no different than what customers could do at home.

Aereo filed the lawsuit in Boston, where it claims CBS was looking to file a second lawsuit in a bid to seek out oa more sympathetic court. The lawsuit seeks to prevent such “duplicative” lawsuits. CBS has already appealed the injunction decision “en banc” sending it back to the same appeals court with new information.

3: Meme Creator: Wouldn’t You Be Sued for Using Scribblenauts’ Copyright?

Finally today, Owen Good at Kotaku writes that Christopher Orlando Torres, the holder of the copyright to the Nyan Cat meme, has posted on his blog and responded to the criticism of his recent lawsuit against Warner Brothers and 5th Cell, the publisher and developer of the Scribblenauts game series.

According to Torres, he and his co-plaintiff, Charles Schmidt, the creator of Keyboard Cat, sued the companies after they refused to provide any compensation for the use of the memes in various Scribblenauts games.

Torres also clarified that he has no objections to anyone using his meme for non-commercial purposes and expanding upon it. His issue was with the commercial nature of the game and also notes that the companies recently paid a license to Nintendo to use characters owned by the company in future games.

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.