3 Count: Nickelodeon Boot

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1: Google Gets an Early Win in Fight Against Mississippi Attorney General’s Subpoena

First off today, Russell Brandom at The Verge reports that Google has secured an injunction against Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, barring him from sending any further subpoenas as part of his investigation of the company.

In 2013, Hood sent a large subpoena to Google regarding the company’s practices over search and piracy. However, Google began to fight the subpoena claiming it overstepped the bounds of a state Attorney General and violated user privacy. After an email leak revealed that the MPAA had launched a plan to work with state Attorney Generals in battling companies like Google, the company claimed that the relationship between Hood and the MPAA was improper.

Hood had previously called for a “time out” in the investigation, halting all subpoenas and legal action. However, the Google lawsuit against Hood continued with the court handing down this injunction. The injunction is sealed at this time, making it impossible to know just why the court ruled in Google’s favor and how limiting it is.

2: Marvin Gaye Family Says Jury Has Been ‘Poisoned’ By ‘Blurred Lines’ Trial Testimony

Next up today, Eriq Grander at Billboard reports that attorneys for the Marvin Gaye estate are claiming that arguments and statements made by opposing counsel in the Blurred Lines lawsuit may have “poisoned” the jury, possibly irreparably.

The Gaye estate was proactively sued by Robin Thick and Pharrell Williams after they began claiming that Blurred Lines was a derivative work of Got To Give it Up by Marvin Gaye. However, since the Gaye estate only controls the copyright in the composition of Gaye’s song, not the sound recording, they’ve been severely limited in the evidence they can present.

However, the estate is continuing to press the theory that the sound recording is an embodiment of the composition and has taken issue with statements by opposing counsel highlighting their lack of ownership in the sound recording. The Gaye estate is claiming that that Thicke and Williams infringed the sound recording, which is a representation of the original and the statements could be prejudicial to the jury.

3: Viacom Suing Nickelodeon Streaming Pirates

Finally today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that Viacom has filed a lawsuit against the operators of the site Nickelodeon Reboot, seeking to bring down the streaming site.

Nickelodeon Reboot was founded in 2012 and features a random stream of Nickelodeon TV shows from the 1990s and 2000s. The site also recently launched an on demand service for customers who are willing to pay for the ability to choose the shows they want to watch.

Nickelodeon has filed a lawsuit against “John Doe”, identified only by the CloudFlare IP addresses for the site. The aim of the lawsuit, most likely, is to force CloudFlare and any others providing service to the site to turn over information identifying the owners for any further legal action that’s required to shut down the site.

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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