3 Count: Panorama Jammer

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

1: European Parliament Rejects ‘absurd’ EU Plan to Axe Freedom of Panorama

First off today, Chris Cheesman at Amateur Photographer reports that the European Parliament has rejected a controversial proposal to remove some “freedom of panorama” has been removed.

The freedom of panorama deals with the right to take photos in public spaces, even if those photos include building, sculptures, landmarks or other copyrighted works. Even as the Parliament seemed to accept more liberal copyright proposals from German Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda, others sought to use the opportunity to add a non-commercial clause to the freedom of panorama, making it illegal to use photographs of buildings and landmarks in a commercial manner.

That proposal has been defeated but the European Parliament has stopped short of extending the right to all countries in the bloc. Many countries, including France and Italy, disallow all photographs, commercial and non-commercial of copyrighted works while others limit it to buildings but not works of art.

2: Pirate Bay Founders Acquitted in Criminal Copyright Case

Next up today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that four of the original founders of The Pirate Bay have been acquitted in a Belgian criminal copyright case.

The four admins, Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström, were convicted in Sweden of operating the site and sentenced to jail for less than a year in each case. However, in 2006, they claim to have sold the site to a company named Reservella. The Belgian case, however, looked at the site between September 2011 and November 2013, a time during which all four say they had nothing to do with the site.

That statement is bolstered by the fact one of the four was serving his prison sentence during that period. The case fell apart and has been dismissed with even anti-piracy advocates agreeing with the ruling.

3: Don’t Play Neil Young or the Doors, BBC Tells DJs and Programme Makers

Finally today, Michael Hann at The Guardian reports that the BBC has told its producers and DJs to not play songs by Neil Young, The Doors, Journey or Bonnie Raitt as they are unable to obtain the rights to those tracks anymore.

The issue stems from the four acts withdrawing from the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society, which serves as a collection agency for songwriters and composers. Broadcasters, like the BBC, use it to clear the rights to songs that they air and pay the creators. The four acts, which are all under the same publisher, withdrew their music from the service, prompting the BBC to prevent all use of their music.

That ban extends to covers of their song as well as songs that sample and remix music by the musicians. Interestingly, though the ban is new the withdrawals are not, with Neil Young having removed his music back in 2002 with the others following suit after.

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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