3 Count: New Czar

Jonathan BaileyAugust 29, 2014

2 minutes read

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

1: White House Picks D.C. Attorney Danny Marti to be the Next “IP Czar”

First off today, Nancy Scola at The Washington Post reports that the White House has announced it is nominating Daniel H. Marti to the position of Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), commonly known as the “IP Czar”.

The IPEC position coordinates enforcement of intellectual property across federal agencies and also pushing the White House’s agenda on intellectual property. The previous person to hold the position, Victoria Espinel, left the post in August

Marti is a managing partner in the D.C. law firm Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, where has been heavily involved in copyright enforcement, including offering assistance in the recent leak of the Expendables 3 film.

2: SiriusXM Has Good Week in Important Legal Battle Over Pre-1972 Music

Next up today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that Sirius XM has scored a pair of wins in its ongoing legal battles over pre-1972 sound recordings.

SiriusXM is a satellite radio operator that plays a variety of music to subscribers. However, pre-1972 sound recordings do not qualify for federal copyright protection, instead falling under state laws, and SiriusXM has been repeatedly sued for failing to pay royalties on those recordings.

In the major New York lawsuit with the record labels, the judge has indicated that he disagrees with the labels on several of the cases that they cited to show SiriusXM was committing misappropriation. According to the judge, those cases dealt with analog recordings, not digital streams, and a jury needs to weigh those issues at trial. In another case, this one against the royalty-collection firm SoundExchange, the judge has ordered a stay on the case, putting it on pause until the copyright royalty board can rule on what deductions SiriusXM qualifies for.

3: Dotcom Loses Appeal to Keep Assets Secret

Finally today, 3 News is reporting that Kim Dotcom has lost his bid to keep his assets hidden from the major movie studios.

Dotcom was arrested in January 2012 after his site Megaupload was shuttered by a joint U.S. and New Zealand police action. As the criminal case against him has dragged on, the movie studios filed a civil lawsuit against him in New Zealand. Though much of his assets were frozen in the criminal investigation, the movie studios wanted a complete accounting of his assets that weren’t frozen for fear that he was divesting them ahead of a potential judgment.

Dotcom had spent an estimated $3.25 million on the Internet Party, a political party he founded in New Zealand, and had offered a $5 million bounty for information of unethical behavior by U.S. or New Zealand governments in his case. Dotcom had sought a stay in the order pending an appeal of the decision but the appeals court disagreed saying that merely disclosing his assets would not have any impact on him and was not a prejudice to him.

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.