3 Count: Under the Gun

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1: Google Should Pay Authors for Scanned Books, US Appeals Court Told

First off today, Reuters is reporting that The Authors Guild and Google met in front of a three-judge panel at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals where the guild argued that the court should overturn a lower court opinion and require Google to pay authors for scanning and including their books in Google Book Search.

The two sides have been locked in a long-running litigation that saw two settlements be rejected for being overly broad. However, when the district court finally heard the case, it ruled in favor of Google, tossing the case.

The Authors Guild has appealed that ruling but faces a challenge as this same court recently rejected another appeal of theirs, this one involving colleges scanning and indexing their collections. A ruling in this case is not expected for several months.

2: Kim Dotcom Can Renegotiate $40 Million Hong Kong Freeze

Next up today, Lulu Yilun Chen at Bloomberg reports that Hong Kong will be rehearing the issue of Kim Dotcom’s frozen assets in the country. A win on this front could give Dotcom access to over $40 million in previously frozen funds.

Dotcom was arrested in January 2012 in his home country of New Zealand on a joint action by U.S. and local authorities over his site, Megaupload, which at the time was the largest cyberlocker site on the Web. Dotcom is currently fighting extradition to the U.S. but, after several delays, the hearing is not expected until June 2015.

In the meantime, Dotcom is seeking to have assets of his in Hong Kong unfrozen. While the court agreed that the original order to freeze the assets was improper and undid it, the judge involved put a new freeze order in place pending a hearing. However, unlike the first order, Dotcom and his lawyers will be able to present their evidence at the hearing.

3: Beach Boys, Maybe Dylan, With New ’64 Copyright Sets, But How About the Beatles?

Finally today, Steve Marnucci at the Examiner reports that The Beach Boys have announced two new sets of digital recordings being released, both from 1964 and there are rumors Bob Dylan has a similar set planned.

The end of the year has become a time for limited publication of older music not heard before. The reason is because EU copyright law allows musicians to extend their copyright term in recordings from 50 to 70 years, but only if the music was published in the first 50 years. Many bands from the 60s have begun publishing limited collections of rare recordings to secure that extension.

In addition to the Beach Boys and Bob Dylan, it’s also rumored the Beatles will see a similar release, a follow up to their “The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963” set that was put out this time last year.

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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