3 Count: RickRoll Down

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1: UK Anti-Piracy Campaign Set to Begin

First off today, the BBC reports that, in the UK, those who routinely download pirated content will likely soon receive warnings that their actions are illegal as well as other educational information about copyright.

The warnings are the result of a new agreement between ISPs and copyright holders in the country. The system will send up to four warnings per year though, if the warnings are ignored, no further action will be taken.

The program is part of a three-year educational plan and it comes largely out of the Digital Eocnomy Act, which includes a “three strikes” provision to disconnect repeated file sharers. However, that law has not yet been implemented.

2: Russia’s mail.ru Banned by Italian Court for Promoting Distribution of Pirated Products

Next up today, Arka Telecom reports that an Italian court has ordered ISPs within the country to block access to Russian email provider Mail.ru over the alleged distribution of pirated content.

The request comes from Eyemoon Pictures, a local independent movie distributor, that claims pre-release copies of two of its films were located on the Mail.ru server. Other sites were also blocked including Mega, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom’s newest file sharing and storage service.

Another blockage of the Russian social networking site Vkontakte, first issued in November of 2013, continues today despite the infringing material being removed as ISPs in the country are often slow to lift bans after blocking sites.

3: YouTube Blocks Original RickRoll Video

Finally today, Marc Schneider at Billboard reports that the original “RickRoll” video, entitled “RickRoll’D” was at least briefly blocked in many countries across the world, including the United States.

RockRolling is a form of trolling that involves tricking a person into viewing the video for Rick Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give You Up”, the original RickRoll video has amassed some 71 million views and has been online since May 2007.

The video came down once in 2012 but was restored almost immediately. Something similar seems to have happened here with the video temporally blocked in most countries though, once again, restored almost immediately.

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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