3 Count: Still Frozen

Jonathan BaileyAugust 22, 2014

2 minutes read

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

1: Aereo Loses Appeals Bid to Be Seen as Cable Operator

First off today, Brian Fung At The Washington Post reports that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against Aereo, both issuing an injunction against the service to prevent it from operating and saying that it is the wrong court for addressing the issue of whether or not it qualifies as a cable service.

Aereo is a TV streaming service that, prior to its loss at the Supreme Court, used a series of tiny antennas, one per customer, to capture and stream over-the-air broadcast television. Broadcasters sued and, despite success in the lower courts, the Supreme Court ruled that Aereo is publicly performing the works of copyright holders and is infringing.

Aereo has since changed legal tactics and is claiming to be a cable company, which would qualify it for a statutory license under the law. However, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals declined to rule on that and, as expected, issued an injunction against Aereo barring it from operating. The injunction, however, has little impact as Aereo has paused its operations shortly after the Supreme Court ruling was handed down.

2: Dotcom’s Assets Frozen Until April

Next up today, Nicholas Jones at the New Zealand Herald reports that Kim Dotcom’s assets will remain frozen until at least April 2015.

Dotcom, who was the head of the file sharing site Megaupload, was arrested and has his site shuttered in January 2012 in a joint action by U.S. and New Zealand authorities. At that time, many of his assets were frozen or seized but the order to hold the assets expired in April of this year. A high court in New Zealand refused to extend the order but that was appealed and now the appeals court has overturned the lower court decision.

Dotcom’s criminal case, which centers around possible extradition to the United States for counts of criminal copyright infringement and money laundering, has been delayed repeatedly due to issues surrounding evidence and fairness. Dotcom’s extradition hearing is currently scheduled for February 2015.

3: Man Jailed for Filming Fast And Furious in Cinema

Finally today, the BBC is reporting that Phillip Danks has been sentenced to 33 months in jail for illegally recording the Fast And Furious 6 in a Walsall movie theater.

Danks uploaded the film to various file sharing sites and it was downloaded over 700,000 times. He was caught after he used the sane username, TheCod3r, to leave a comment on a pirated movie site as his username on Plenty of Fish.

Another man, Michael Bell, was sentenced to 120 hours of community service. Bell was the boyfriend of Dank’s sister and had helped with the uploading of the film.

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.