3 Count: New-ish Girl

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

1: Dallas Buyers Club Wants to Know Torrenters’ Wage and Download History

First off today, Josh Taylor at ZDNet reports that, in Australia, Dallas Buyers Club LLC, the company that owns the rights to the film by the same name, has submitted its proposed emails and phone scripts that it plans to use to contact suspected infringers in the country.

The company has sought to have some 4,700 Australians identified that they suspect, based on IP information, of pirating the movie. They had sought in a subpoena to compel local ISPs to turn over the identities of their subscribers but the ISPs fought back. Dallas Buyers Club LLC won the right to obtain the information, but only if they pay ISP costs and get their emails and phone scripts approved by the court.

The court wanted such approval to avoid “speculative invoicing”, where a rights holder will threaten suspected infringers in order to procure quick settlements. Those scripts have been submitted but are not publicly available at this time. However, in a hearing the court expressed concern that the proposed texts were still too strongly worded and overstated the power of the evidence. The court still has to decide whether or not to approve them.

2: Major indie labels are not happy with Apple Music

Next up today Aaron Souppouris at Engadget reports that the Beggars Group, a group that represents several smaller independent record labels, has expressed concern over Apple’s upcoming launch of Apple Music, noting that it will not receive any royalties from the service’s three month free trial period.

Smaller artists have also complained, including Anton Newcombe, the lead singer of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, who said on Twitter that Apple made him a similar offer and, when he mentioned declining, Apple threatened to remove all of his music from iTunes.

Other than the issue of the three month trial, most labels seem to be pleased with the deal Apple is offering, which will be 71.5% of its total revenues to labels, which is slightly higher than Spotify, though less than Tidal.

3: Judge Throws Out ‘New Girl’ Idea Theft Claims

Finally today, in an older story I finally get to come back to, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that two writers attempting to claim that the idea for the show New Girl have had a significant portion of their case dismissed.

The lawsuit was filed by Stephanie Counts and Shari Gold, who allege that the Fox series is based on proposals that they sent to the company. They claim that they had an implied contract from Fox to create the show but Fox broke that contract in September 2011 when it began airing the show without them. The duo sued for breach of contract and copyright infringement but the breach of contract claims have been dismissed because, according to the judge, the plaintiffs waited too long to file their claims and the statute of limitations ran out.

The statute of limitations on such claims is two years. However, the pair waited until 2014 to file their lawsuit. They claimed that they had brought the issue to the attention of Fox in 2011 but their lawyers at the time had a conflict of interest, creating the delay. The judge ruled that there was no material evidence of such a conflict and that the delay was unwarranted, dismissing the contract claims with prejudice so they can not be refiled. However, the copyright claims do remain.

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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