3 Count: The Fugitive

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1: Pirate Bay Co-Founder Arrested in Sweden for Copyright Violation

First off today, Reuters is reporting that Peter Sunde, one of the four founders of The Pirate Bay that was convicted on criminal charges for operating the site, has been arrested in southern Sweden after being on the run for nearly two years.

He was sentenced to serve eight months in prison for his role in the site. He and his codefendants had their sentences upheld by the country’s Supreme Court (after being reduced by an appeals court), but both he and his associate Gottfrid Svartholm fled.

Svartholm was arrested in Cambodia in 2012 and has sense served his sentence. Now Sunde is the last of the four to have not spent time in prison for his role in the site. The Pirate Bay is now operated by a different organization.

2: Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ Plagiarism Suit Rambles On, With New Twists

Next up today, Dan Reilly at Spin reports that the anticipated lawsuit against Led Zeppelin over their hit song “Stairway to Heaven” has been filed and, with it, a lot of new information about the history of the band is shared.

The lawsuit is filed by the estate of Randy California, the frontman for the band Spirit, which claims that the intro to “Stairway to Heaven” was based on a Spirit song “Taurus” and the band was given neither writing credit nor royalties for the use.

“Stairway to Heaven” was released in 1971 and has gone on to be one of the most iconic rock songs of all time. However, California alleges that Spirit often opened for Led Zeppelin and that they had a great deal of influence on the band, including Led Zeppelin covering another Spirit song and the use of a theremin after seeing California use one. The band also claims that Led Zepplin has a long history of plagiarism and denying writers credits, including cases from artists such as Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon.

3: China’s Xunlei Signs Copyright Deal With Motion Picture Association

Finally today, Patrick Frater at Variety reports that the Chinese video site Xunlei has reached a deal with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to reduce piracy and promote legitimate movie consumption.

The deal has two parts, the first of which will see Xunlei adopt content identification technology to filter out infringing materials and the second is an education effort to teach students in Chinese schools about obtaining legal content.

The deal is the first of its kind in China, which the MPAA has been targeting heavily since it represents both the world’s largest market and a largely untapped one for U.S. movies.

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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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.

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