3 Count: Perfect 0-10

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1: Giganews Not Liable for Pirating Usenet Customers, Court Rules

First off today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that adult magazine publisher Perfect 10 has lost it’s long-running case against Usenet service provider Giganews, ruling on a summary judgment that the service did not directly or indirectly infringe Perfect 10’s copyrights.

The ruling, which came from the U.S. District Court for the Central Distract of California, found that Perfect 10’s evidence did not support allegations of direct infringement. Further, it found that Perfect 10’s copyright notices, which included screenshots of the service with instructions to perform certain searches, were not complete. Finally, the court also ruled that Perfect 10 did not receive any direct financial benefit from the infringement, further driving a nail in their indirect infringement claims.

Perfect 10 is one of the most notorious litigants in copyright, having sued a wide variety of sites that it claims distribute or aid in the distribution of their images.

2: Online Piracy Websites Set to be Blocked: Sources

Next up today, Ben Grubb at the Sydney Morning Herald reports that, in Australia, Ministers are preparing to recommend that the government require local ISPs to forward letters of copyright infringement to customers and that they will make it possible for rightsholders to get an injunction in court requiring ISPs block access to infringing websites.

However, another proposal, one that would require ISPs to slow or disconnect repeat inringers, so-called graduated response, will not be on the table. Legislation on these issues could be in front of Parliament before Christmas.

These recommendations come from an earlier, if controversial, report that put these suggestions forward.

3: Rightscorp Nails 30,000 users for Piracy in One Month, Still Loses Money

Finally today, Joe Mullin at Ars Technica reports that copyright enforcement company Rightscorp has increased its revenue and activity, but is still losing money and may be forced to close down.

Rightscorp works by detecting copyright infringement and then sending demand letters through the file sharer’s ISP asking them to pay a small settlement to end the case. According to their most recent corporate filings, they have closed 130,000 cases against suspected pirates and saw their revenue jump to $248,000 in the latest quarter. However, the company’s expenses still totaled over $1 million, meaning that the company is looking for additional funding to keep going.

The company, in its earnings call, acknowledged that, while it works with over 150 ISPs, those ISPs only make up about 15% of all U.S. customers. Rightscorp was also secretive about a previously-discussed plan to hijack infringer browsers, saying only that it has been experimented with but there is no deployment schedule.

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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