3 Count: Retro Unbundled

Jonathan BaileyJune 5, 2013

2 minutes read

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

1: The Pirate Bay Helps to Expose Copyright Troll Honeypot

First off today, Erensto at Torrentfreak writes that The Pirate Bay has released logs that it claims show that John Steele, or someone involved at Prenda Law, was the original uploader of the files that they would go on to file massive lawsuits over.

Prenda is the well-known copyright “troll” that mass sued suspected BitTorrent file sharers identified by IP addresses and then, after compelling ISPs to hand over subscriber data, threaten the suspected pirates directly. However, after many of the defendants fought back, alleged unethical practices began to surface, including the use of shell companies and, more recently, allegations that Prenda themselves made the files available as a form of “honeypotting” to ensnare file sharers.

The allegations were originally filed by an expert working in one of Prenda’s cases in Florida. He alleged that Prenda was gaining information about torrent swarms so close to after they started that the clocks indicated they were in there before the beginning. The release of the logs by The Pirate Bay indicates that the original uploaders, who went by username Sharkmp4, was either attorney John Steele himself or someone with access to his computer.

2: Retro Game Music Bundle Hits Copyright Issues, Loses Duke Albums

Next up today, Jessica Conditt at Joysiq reports that The Retro Game Music Bundle, a popular bundle of soundtracks and remix albums for classic games, has had to remove several CDs from its collection as an unnamed entity has claimed ownership of the music.

Specifically, the takedown notice involved the music from the Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem II, Major Stryker, Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure, and the Nukem 3D: Remixes albums. The operators of the bundle have added three new albums to replace them for the $10 tier.

The organizers of the bundle said that they were very careful to clear all rights in the works they sold but that music in video games is often conflicting and that this dispute is between the entity who requested the takedown and the group that granted them the rights, not with the bundle operators directly.

3: Copyright Review Under the Microscope at World Creators Summit

Finally today, Ed Christman at Billboard reports that the U.S. Register of Copyrights, Maria Pallente, took the stage at the World Creators Summit in Washington DC yesterday to outline her vision for a drastic overhaul of U.S. copyright law.

Pallente had made her call previously to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, which is already holding some hearings on the matter. She took the stage at the WCS to outline her proposals for a drastic copyright reform and highlight some of the key areas she wanted to target, including orphan works and Internet-related issues.

But while Pallente said that all of the concerns she was hearing were related and could not be addressed by more scaled back changes in the law, other speakers proposed that such smaller scale changes would both be more effective and more plausible.

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.