3 Count: RockDizJail

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

1: Operating a Music Piracy Site Gets Man Three Years in Prison

First off today Andrea Peterson at The Washington Post reports that Rocky Ouprasith, the main behind RockDizMusic.com and RockDizFile.com, has been sentenced to 36 months in prison and will be forced to pay approximately $100,000 between restitution and repayment of money earned.

Ourasith pleaded guilty to one count of criminal copyright infringement in August. The two sites were cyberlockers that largely traded in copyright infringing files, with RockDizFile being, for a time, the second-largest site for pirated music.

Ourasith could have faced up to 5 years in prison and a file of up to $250,000 on top of any profits he had earned. Both attorneys for Ourasith and representatives for the music industry supported the sentence.

2: Popcorn Time’s Alive, Full Comeback in the Works

Next up today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that less than a month after the MPAA forced the closure of Popcorn Time and the YTS torrent group that powered its backend, the most popular fork of the app is alive again as one of the developers behind the original has revived the project.

Popcorn Time is an application commonly referred to as the “Netflix for Piracy”, providing a simple interface for streaming illegal movies. The MPAA successfully closed the project with a lawsuit in Canada and a second lawsuit in New Zealand shuttered the prominent BitTorrent group whose database powered the application.

Now, one of the developers of the application, known only as Wally, has released new versions on Reddit. He’s moved the application to being powered by TorrentsAPI, which is operated by a different group. However, the comeback isn’t complete though Wally is considering it saying that “I just do not want to release a half working version.” Wally is not a defendant in the MPAA’s lawsuit against Popcorn Time but is named in the complaint.

3: Sky Warning Over ‘Cash for Porn’ Leter

Finally today, Jane Wakefield at the BBC reports that, in the UK, customers of Sky Broadband are being warned that they may receive letters from a company known as “Golden Eye” accusing them of copyright infringement of pornographic films.

Golden Eye successfully got an order from a UK court that forced the ISP to turn over the identities of thousands of suspected pirates. Though Golden Eye denies it, Sky claims it is a form of “speculative invoicing”, which is an where a rights holder sends hundreds or thousands of letters to suspected pirates in hopes of having some pay up.

Golden Eye had launched a similar campaign in 2012 where it sought £700 ($1,000) for each film. However, a court ruled that the company could not justify that amount and that each case should be “individually negotiated”.

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.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.