3 Count: Gator Bait

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1: New Law in Florida Looks to Fight Piracy, Simply

First off today, Glenn Peoples at Billboard reports that Florida has signed into law the “True Origin of Digital Goods Act”, which requires sites that offer downloads or streams of music or music videos to “clearly and conspicuously disclose” the name and contact information of their operators.

Though the law was drafted as a consumer protection bill, it was highly sought after by the recorded music industry under the theory that illegal sites will decline to post such information, making it likely that a court would rule them in violation of the act and other action could be taken against them.

The law does not place any liability on Internet service provides, mobile carriers, domain registrars or others whose products may be involved in piracy, just on the sites themselves. However, all sites that distribute music or music videos to people in Florida are covered, not just those based within the state.

2: CBS ‘Supergirl’ Pilot Leaks to Piracy Sites

Next up today, Todd Spangler at Variety reports that a high quality copy of the pilot for Supergirl has leaked on file sharing sites, a full six months before it was supposed to air in November.

The new TV series is to be aired by CBS this fall and a teaser trailer for it has already attracted over 11 million views. However, after just six hours of being online, the leaked pilot episode has been downloaded more than 120,000 times. The video is high definition and is free of any obvious watermarks.

In addition to Supergirl, the pilot for an upcoming sitcom Crowded has also been leaked, leading some to speculate that more leaks could be forthcoming.

3: Spotify adds video, podcasts to service in bid to fend off Apple and Google

Finally today, Lucas Shaw and Joshua Brustein at the Vancouver Sun report that Spotify has announced major additions to its music streaming services, including the addition of video content and podcasts.

Spotify is a music streaming service that operates both a free and paid tier. Though most of its users are free, it makes nearly all of its money from paid subscriptions. Spotify is hoping that the addition of this content will encourage more to pay for a more complete subscription.

The video on the service will come from content partners such as Vice News, Comedy Central, NBC, ABC, and MTV. Though there will be music videos, there will be other video content as well. The service will also start offering podcasts, starting with well-known podcasters such as Slate and Radiolab.

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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