3 Count: Dragon’s Bite

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1: Producer Aims to Stop ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Film Lawsuit

First off today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that Sweatpea Entertainment has filed a second motion for summary judgment in the Dungeons and Dragons case, claiming that it is neither making nor licensing a movie based upon the popular franchise.

Hasbro sued Sweatpea claiming that a film the studio was working on with Warner Brothers was based on the Dungeons and Dragons game franchise. Sweetpea, the producer of the 2000 D&D film, claimed that it still held the movie rights to make new films based on the game, having obtained those rights in a 1994 deal. Hasbro claimed the rights reverted back to them after Sweetpea failed to produce a follow up film in adequate time.

However, the judge denied the first summary judgment between the two saying that the terms of the contract were unclear and needed to be hashed out in court. Now Sweetpea is claiming that it hasn’t committed any infringement. That the new proposed film was not written by Sweetpea, most likely written by Warner, and doesn’t use any protectable elements from the game. Sweetpea claims that it has not copied anything in its work on the new movie.

2: Torrent Site Uploader Ordered to Pay $625,000 For Sharing One Movie

Next up today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that a Swedish court has ordered a 28-year-old man to pay $652,000 for leaking a single film on the now-defunct Swedish file sharing site, Swebits.

In 2011 man was arrested for leaking a pre-release film and distributing on the site for free. For that film he was fined $652,000, the amount the studio says it would have charged for a license to distribute the film for free. He was also convicted of sharing more than 500 other films was given a suspended jail sentence and ordered to perform 160 hours community service. Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of one year in jail.

The damages award is believed to be the largest ever for a Swedish movie.

3: Major US Telecom Patents System to Detect, Neutralize File-Sharers

Finally today, Toru Hanai at Reuters reports that AT&T has received a patent for a new technology that can detect file sharers on its network and, after determining which are the highest-risk, limit the access of those file sharers to the sites they’re using.

According to the patent application, the system is designed to limit bandwidth usage by file sharers and help clear up network congestion. It works by assigning a Subscriber Reputation Score (SRS) to the customer that assesses his risk among other users and then limit their access to file sharing sites.

This patent follows another one by AT&T earlier this year to monitor content shared on BitTorrent and other networks.

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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