3 Count: Expendable Arrest

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1: Expendables 3 Movie ‘Pirates’ Arrested

First off today, Martin Evans at The Telegraph reports that two men in the UK have been arrested by the City of London Police on suspicion of leaking the film “The Expendables 3” weeks before its theater debut.

According to the police, the two men were responsible for gaining access to the DVD-quality copy of the film by breaking into a cloud storage service. They then leaked the film to file sharing networks before the film formally opened, an act that’s attributed to the film losing millions in revenue and turning a huge loss.

After questioning, the two men were released on bail until May 2015.

2: Russia to Block Piracy Websites Permanently After One Copyright Violation

Next up today, Alexey Eremenko at The Moscow Times reports that, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a bill that would require ISPs to block access to infringing websites after a single court order.

The bill is actually an expansion of an earlier law that applied only to movies. This new version applies to all types of copyrighted work other than photographs. It requires sites to remove infringing materials within 24 hours of notification and, if they fail to, a court can be petitioned to order ISPs to block access to it.

According to the bill, once a site is blocked there is no process for having it unblocked in the country. Currently some 75,000 sites are blocked but an estimated 95 percent are thought to be collateral damage.

3: Kim Dotcom: I Regret Not Taking Threat of Copyright Law and MPAA More Seriously

Finally today, Mary-Ann Russon at the International Business Times reports that Kim Dotcom spoke to the Unbound Digital Conference in London via teleconference where he discussed both the recent departure of his legal team and the regrets that he had from his ordeal.

Dotcom was arrested in January 2012 and his site, Megaupload, was shuttered over allegations of criminal copyright infringement. He now faces extradition from his native New Zealand to the United States, with a hearing schedule for June 2015.

However, earlier this month it was announced that his legal team quit on him abruptly. At the conference Dotcom said that was because he simply ran out of money and is now “officially” broke. He also said he regretted, with Megaupload, not taking copyright and the MPAA more seriously. He said, at the time, he felt comforted by other legal decisions with similar services but was surprised when he was targeted in such a strong way.

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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