3 Count: Grooveshark Soup

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1: Grooveshark Loses in Court Again, EMI Wins Summary Judgment in Copyright Case

First off today, Glenn Peoples at Billboard reports that Grooveshark has suffered yet another legal setback in its case against the record label EMI, now owned by Universal Music Group, as the judge has ruled the site and service is not protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and is liable for copyright infringement on its service.

Grooveshark is a music streaming service owned by Escape Media that, unlike Spotify and similar services which have licenses with the record labels, has users upload tracks for others to stream. This prompted EMI to sue in 2009 but the two reached a licensing agreement in 2012. However, that agreement quickly fell apart prompting another lawsuit and Escape to claim protection under the DMCA, the law that protects hosts from being held liable for content uploaded by third parties.

However, the court says that such protection is not applicable because Grooveshark’s repeat infringer policy is inadequate and worked to prevent copyright holders from filing DMCA notices. Escape also tried to have any pre-1972 sound recordings excluded from the case because they are protected under state law, not federal. However, it failed in that endeavor when the judge cited a ruling in a New York case that pits SiriusXM against Flo & Eddie of the Turtles that ruled such recordings have a public performance right.

2: Irish ISP is Forced to Set Up Three-Strikes

Next up today, Chris Cooke at Complete Music Update reports that the High Court in Ireland has ordered local Internet provider UPC to introduce a “three strikes” system to punish those who are caught downloading copyright infringing content.

The dispute began five years ago when the nation’s largest ISP, Eircom, voluntarily agreed to introduce such a system. Three strikes systems work by having copyright holders send notifications when they detect illegal file sharing on an IP address. This results in a warning being sent to the customer, who risks having their account suspended or cut after too many warnings.

But after Eircom instituted the system, other ISPs balked at the idea and were sued by local record industry groups. The court has now ordered UPC to implement the system and has given the two sides just one month to layout how they will do so as well as whether similar legal action will be taken against other ISPs in the country.

3: Another Major Publisher is Going to War with Amazon

Finally today, Jillian D’Onfro at Business Insider reports that another publisher is set to go to war with Amazon over the book giant’s contract, which could result in ebooks being removed from Amazon’s Kindle store as well as delays shipping physical copies.

The dispute is between HarperCollins and Amazon centers around the agreement that allows Amazon to distribute books electronically. The dispute echoes an earlier one with publisher Hachette, which went on for months and saw the publishers’ books suffer limited availability on the site.

According to sources, Amazon offered HarperCollins the same contract that it signed with Hachette to end the feud, which was also the same one signed by both Simon & Schuster and Macmillian. However, HarperCollins has balked at the terms and is seeking a more favorable agreement, even as time on the current contract runs out.

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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