3 Count: Aurous Fixation

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1: Aurous Sued By the Majors Three Days After Debut

First off today, Andrew Flanagan at Billboard reports that the three major record labels have filed a lawsuit against the music streaming service Aurous, just three days after it launched an alpha version of its product.

Aurous is a music streaming service akin to Spotify but, instead of pulling the music from a licensed catalog of songs, pulls its music from YouTube, SoundCloud and over 120 other sources, many of which are illegal, to stream its music.

The site will likely defend itself by saying that it isn’t hosting any of the infringing material but other companies that have made similar arguments have failed. In the meantime, the complaint is seeking the maximum of $150,000 per infringement and an immediate injunction against its availability.

2: WikiLeaks: ISPs to Hand Over Copyright Infringer Details Under TPP

Next up today, Corinne Reichert at ZDNet reports that a Wikileaks has released what it claims to be a final draft of the intellectual property portions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement signed last month by some 11 pacific rim nations including the U.S., Mexico, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

The treaty was negotiated largely in secret outside of leaks. Under the latest version, nations will be required not only to have ISPs forward notices from copyright holders to suspected pirates, but also have a system in place for identifying suspected infringers. Details of how the systems will work are vague other than they are to be applied within the country’s current legal framework.

The agreement has been widely controversial for its secrecy and fears that it may have broad negative impacts on the Internet. The treaty is supposed to go through a final “legal scrub” but all negotiations are done as the pact was signed.

3: Jay Z Attends Start of Big Pimpin’ Copyright Trial

Finally today, The BBC is reporting that Jay Z is attending the beginning of the Big Pimpin’ trial, which just got underway.

The lawsuit was brought heirs of Egyptian composer Baligh Hamdi, who claim that Jay Z’s hit song Big Pimpin’ uses an illegal sample of Hamdi’s song Khosara Khosara. Jay Z claim that they paid a rights agency some $100,000 to license the sample but the heirs claim that the payment is irrelevant not only because the group couldn’t license the use and because Jay Z’s song was offensive to Hamdi’s work, violating his moral rights.

The trial has just begun and Jay Z is expected to testify today along with experts on Egyptian music.

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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