3 Count: Down Periscope

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

1: Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo Claim MPAA is Trying to Resurrect SOPA

First off today, Samuel Gibbs at The Guardian reports that Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo are among the companies that have filed an amicus brief in the Movietube case, asking the court to curtail the preliminary injunction asked for by the movie studios.

The studios filed suit against Movietube, a series of piracy-oriented streaming sites, and asked for a preliminary injunction barring hosts, advertisers, search engines, caching services and others from providing services or linking to the site. The request could also result in ISPs being barred from providing users access to those sites.

To the tech companies, this broad injection was similar to the Stop Online Piracy Act, a controversial bill that was defeated following massive protests in January 2012. The brief asks the court to strike components of the injunction that it deems objectionable and set a standard for other courts to follow.

2: Twitter Releases Data on Periscope’s Copyright Infringement Problem

Next up today, Ariha Setalvad at The Verge reports that Twitter has released the latest transparency report and revealed that its Periscope service has received over 1,300 copyright takedown requests since its launch in March.

Periscope is a live streaming service that allows users to broadcast from their phones to the world instantly. However, the app has drawn a great deal of negative attention for its usefulness for pirating content, in particular live events such as TV/movie premieres and sporting events.

According to the report, Periscope complied with 71 percent of all copyright takedown requests though the report did not say if these were successful in shutting down streams as they were taking place or were caught after the fact.

3: UK Police are Waging War on Piracy Sites’ Funding — and it’s Working

Finally today, Rob Price at Business Insider reports that, in the UK, the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) is claiming that, following its efforts to discourage advertising on piracy sites, there has been a 73% decline in advertising from the country’s “top ad spending companies” on such domains.

The program began in 2013 when PIPCU created a “blacklist” of sites know as the Infringing Website List (IWL), which is comprised of sites hosting illegal content that did not work with PIPCU to avoid being placed on it. The list was distributed to ad partners to alert them not to do business with any of these domains.

PIPCU also partnered with the company Project Sunblock to replace brand ads on IWL websites with warning banners that the site is being investigated by the organization.

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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