3 Count: Bulbasaur Fainted

Jonathan BaileyAugust 19, 2014

3 minutes read

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

1: TV Broadcasters Aim for Broad Injunction Against Aereo

First off today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that broadcasters, fresh off their with at the Supreme Court, are now seeking a broad injunction against Aereo, one that would require it to stop “streaming, transmitting, retransmitting, or otherwise publicly performing any copyrighted programming over the Internet… or by means of any device or process throughout the United States of America.”

In late June, the Supreme Court ruled that Aereo’s TV streaming service, which used a series of tiny antennas, one per customer, to capture over-the-air broadcast television and stream it online, publicly performed the works of broadcasters and was a copyright infringement. Aereo has since ceased operations while attempts to find a different path to legality, but the courts have refused to allow it to start back up.

Now the broadcasters are seeking a broad injunction to end Aereo’s practices. Aereo, however, is trying to position itself as a cable company in hopes that it will be able to pay a statutory license to use broadcast signals and resume operations.

2: Anti-Piracy Outfit Wants to Hijack Browsers Until Fine Paid

Next up today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that Rightscorp, an anti-piracy outfit that is best known for sending demands for smaller settlements for copyright infringement to alleged file sharers, announced in an earnings call that they are seeking to put more pressure on ISPs in the nation to be more compliant in forwarding their demand letters and are hoping to build a system where ISPs freeze a user account until a fine or settlement is paid.

According to Righscorp COO and CTO Robert Steele, the move is not to “terminate” user accounts but to do what he calls a “hard redirect”, similar to what you see when you use the wifi in a hotel room and have to log in before using the Web.

Rightscorp collects on behalf of several major record labels, usually demanding $20 per infringement. However, given that each track on a CD is treated separately, a single case can easily involve hundreds of dollars. Rightscorp also disclosed that, while its revenue is improving, the company is still in the red, spending far more money than it takes in.

3: Nintendo Uses Copyright on Best Pokémon Fan Project. It’s Super Effective

Finally today, Ben Kuchera at Polygon reports that Nintendo has sent a cease and desist to the site Shapeways, a 3D Printing site where users can upload designs that others can print for a fee, over a planter in the shape of a Pokemon character.

Artist Claudia Ng uploaded the design to the site but the planter, patterned after Bulbasaur, drew the attention of Nintendo, who owns the Pokemon franchise. Nintendo sent a cease and desist to Shapeways, which removed the design within an hour and is not printing or shipping any recent orders.

Ng said that she felt the work was generic enough to fly under the copyright radar, even though her listing made references to Pokemon. However, she is said that she is discussing the issue with Nintendo directly in hopes of continuing printing the planters or, at the very least, resolving the copyright issues amicably.

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.