3 Count: Aereo Injunction

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1: U.S. Broadcasters Win Preliminary Injunction Against Aereo

First off today, Andrew Chung at Reuters reports that Aereo has suffered yet another court setback, with a lower court judge both issuing an injunction against the service and closing the door on one of its arguments that would have kept it alive.

Aereo was a TV streaming service that used a series of tiny antennas, one per customer, to capture and stream broadcast TV over the Web. It was sued by the broadcasters but claimed that, since each antenna was used by one person, that there was no copyright infringement. Despite success in the lower courts, the Supreme Court ruled against Aereo, sending the case back to the lower court.

That court has now issued a preliminary injunction, barring Aereo from streaming live TV over the Web and also forbidding it from using a compulsory license, similar to a cable company, to keep operating. The one hope for Aereo is that the court did not rule on the issue of streaming recorded programming, which the court said it would take up when discussing the permanent injunction shortly.

2: Pop Duo Claims Rapper Rick Ross Deliberately ‘Delaying’ Copyright Infringement Case

Next up today, Francesca Bacardi at Radar Online reports that lawyers representing the pop duo LMFAO are telling the court that Rick Ross is dragging out their copyright litigation in hopes of raising costs and forcing the group to cave in.

Ross sued the band after LMFAO’s hit single “Party Rock Anthem” used the line, “Every Day I’m Shufflin'”, which Ross felt was an infringement of his iconic “Every Day I’m Hustlin'”. Ross sued but there hasn’t been much progress on the case, which is bogged down in discovery.

LMFAO claims that the delay is because of Ross himself. They say he not only missed an opportunity to depose Redfoo, one of the members of LMFAO, but also that such a deposition wouldn’t have any benefit. They further claim that he is continuing to demand more evidence despite having more than 20,000 pages in documents. Ross is seeking both an injunction and damages over the alleged infringement but LMFAO is claiming that the lyric involved can’t be copyrighted.

3: Google’s New Search Downlinking Hits Torrent Sites Hard

Finally today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that Google’s anti-piracy algorithm changes appear to have taken effect and many of the world’s largest BitTorrent sites are being hit very hard.

According to the report, many of the most popular search sites have had their search engine traffic reduced by half or more. However, the site owners were quick to dismiss this impact saying that they receive relatively little traffic from Google and that the drop might be made up by people who visit directly.

Others noted that, especially for piracy-targeted queries, smaller infringing sites rose to the top of the rankings, giving them more attention and traffic. However, they too will likely fall as they become targets for copyright notices.

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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