3 Count: Mine the Vines

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: No Limits: Rights Holders Could Potentially Block Hundreds of Piracy Websites in Australia with a Single Strike

First off today, Ben Grubb at the Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Australian parliament has introduced a bill that will allow rights holders to go to court and obtain orders for local ISPs to block access to infringing websites.

The bill puts no limit on the number of domains that rightsholders can target for blocking but it does say that they must make a reasonable effort to remove the content in other ways. The bill also doesn’t say how the sites should be blocked, leaving it up to judges and ISPs to determine the best way to do so.

The bill has drawn a great deal of controversy for its cost, an estimated $130,000 per year to ISPs, the possibility for non-infringing sites to also be targeted and possibility that virtual private networks (VPNs) would also be targeted. The bill had been delayed to address some of these unintended consequences, though it is unclear what changed were made.

2: DHS/ICE and City of London Police Make Piracy Fight Official

Next up today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that the City of London Police, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security have signed a memorandum of understanding that says they will continue to cooperate to battle intellectual property crimes.

All three organizations have been very active in the fight against various forms of IP infringement. ICE is best known for its seizure of domains engaging in copyright and trademark infringement, the City of London Police, through their Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) have made several arrests in the UK and DHS helped shutter the streaming site NinjaVideo.

The memorandum formalized their existing cooperative efforts in fighting intellectual property infringement, which is highlighted by a 2014 arrest by PIPCU of two men accused of leaking the Expendables 3 following a referral by DHS.

3: CBS Mines Vines for One Direction Clip, then Cites Copyright Claim to Pull it From YouTube

Finally today, Chris Thompson at Pointer repots that CBS has pulled down a popular clip of their news broadcast after it went viral following an announcement that they had been pranked by a Vine user.

After the announcement that Zayn Malik was quitting the band One Direction, Ben Berst posted a Vine of himself kissing a photograph of Malik as a joke. CBS, however, picked up on it as if it were genuine and aired it as part of their nightly news broadcast.

Berst then captured the clip of the CBS news broadcast and posted it on YouTube. Shortly thereafter, the story took off on Reddit, receiving thousands of views and votes. However, the video has since been removed due to a copyright claim by CBS, though it’s unclear if it was an automated claim or a manual takedown notice.

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.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

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