3 Count: Yo! Aereo

Jonathan BaileyAugust 4, 2014

2 minutes read

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

1: Judge Refuses Aereo’s Request to Resume Business

First off today, Richard Morgan at The New York Post reports that a Federal judge has struck down an emergency plea by TV streaming service Aereo to resume operations.

Aereo, a service that used a series of tiny antennas, one per customer, to capture, record and stream over-the-air broadcast television to its customers, was ruled by the Supreme Court to be publicly performing the works of broadcasters and ordered to pause its service. The company then attempted to get a statutory license from the U.S. Copyright Office as a cable company, which the Supreme Court likened it to, but the Copyright Office refused that request.

Aereo made the petition in hopes that it would be able to begin collecting revenue again, saying that it is “figuratively bleeding to death” due to the fact it is incurring high costs without any incoming cash. That request was denied and the lower court will continue to hear the case, looking to the Supreme Court decision for guidance.

2: Lionsgate Sues Over ‘Expendables 3’ Leak

Next up today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that Lionsgate films, the company behind the upcoming film “The Expendables 3” has filed a lawsuit in California against “John Does 1-10” over the pre-release leak of the film.

According to the lawsuit, Lionsgate became aware on July 24th that a high-quality reproduction of the film had been uploaded to the Web. The lawsuit targets the operators behind 6 different BitTorrent sites and BitTorrent users.

The lawsuit immediately seeks a temporary restraining order barring the sites from distributing the film, to bar the defendants from operating any of the involved websites and to attempt to recover all copies of the film they have distributed. They also want the domains locked so they can’t be transferred away and have put the ISPs and banks on notice that they may be receiving subpoenas shortly in the case.

3: Yo! Has Dropped Its Copyright Infringement Complaint Against Australian App Oi!

Finally today, Alex Heber at Business Insider Australia reports that the makers of the Yo messaging app have confirmed that they have dropped their copyright infringement claim against Oi!, a similar app.

Yo is a novelty app that has raised $1 million in seed funding and allows users to message their friends with just one word, “Yo”. A similar app name Oi!, which used the same concept but with a different word, “Oi!”, became the subject of a copyright notice from Yo, who accused Oi! of cloning their app.

The complaint was filed with Apple and sought to have Oi! removed from the app store. However, no legal action was filed against Oi!, which is also expected in the Android App Store soon.

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.