3 Count: Cored Apple

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1: Apple Conspired with Book Publishers, Appeals Court Confirms

First off today, Jeff John Roberts at Fortune reports that Apple has lost an appeal in the ebook price fixing case and with it will likely begin dispersing some $450 million in payments to customers impacted by its wrongdoings.

The case stems from an agreement Apple reached with the five major publishers in 2010 to set the prices for ebook on the new iPad. The Department of Justice considered this price fixing and took action against Apple and the publishers. While the publishers quickly settled the case, Apple fought on but now has lost an appeal 2-to-1 at the Second Circuit.

The court ruled that Apple had violated the Sherman Act and that the company behaved in an anticompetitive manner. While Apple could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, they are unlikely to do so and it is unlikely the court would take the case. Under a previous conditional class action settlement, Apple agreed to pay some $450 million to customers if its appeal failed, which it now has. Apple, for its part, still denies any wrongdoing.

2: Google’s YouTube Loses Appeal in German Copyright Case

Next up today, Nikola Rotscheroth and Harro Ten Wolde at Reuters reports that a German regional court has ruled that YouTube, in addition to removing infringing videos after notification, must prevent those videos from being reuploaded to its service using whatever means are available.

The decision upholds a lower court order and also continues to free YouTube from proactively searching for infringing or otherwise illegal material on the site. However, once YouTube is notified of a “clear violation of the law”, it is not enough to merely remove it but it “must take precautions to avoid further infringements of copyright.”

YouTube already utilizes a ContentID system but only after content creators register for the service and upload their content for matching. The new ruling could cause YouTube to apply such a system to all videos removed through a copyright notice.

3: French Magazine Fined €10,000 for Encouraging Piracy

Finally today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that a French magazine titled Téléchargement has been fined €10,000 ($11,000) for teaching readers how to pirate films, music and software in an edition of its magazine.

Téléchargement, which translates to “download’, released a “pirate” issue that featured a pirate skull and advertised “The best software and websites to download for free.” It went on to describe, in great detail, how to use search engines to locate pirated content and how to use BitTorrent and other tools to download the material.

The issue drew the attention of a local music industry group, the SCPP, which took legal action. The publication defended itself saying that it warned repeatedly piracy was illegal but the court felt that it wasn’t enough and the publication ran afoul of French law that makes it illegal to “knowingly encourage” copyright infringement. The ruling is final and can not be appealed.

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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