3 Count: Richard Prince… Again…

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

1: Warner Brothers and Intel Sue 4K Content Protection “Stripper”

First off today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that Warnerbrothers and Digital Content Protection (DCP), a company owned by Intel, have filed a lawsuit against LegendSky over its HDFury product line, which the lawsuit claims can be used to illegally copy 4K video streams.

In November, pirated copies of 4K-quality movies began to appear on pirate sites, likely captured from Netflix and Amazon. However, since the streams were encrypted, it was unclear how the video was being copied. Now rightholders believe that LegendSky’s products may have had a hand in it as they were launched just days before the pirated streams began to show up.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) it is illegal to produce or trade in products that break copyright protection software. As such, the plaintiffs are suing over violation of the DMCA and also for falsely claiming to be a tool authorized by DCP for viewing 4K video.

2: Outraged Photographer Sues Gagosian Gallery and Richard Prince for Copyright Infringement

New up today, Eileen Kinsella at ArtNet News reports that photographer Donald Graham has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Gagosian Gallery, Larry Gagosian and artist Richard Prince alleging that Prince’s 2014 show New Portraits included a work that violated the rights to one of his images.

New Portraits drew controversy during its showing for featuring large prints of photographs taken by others and uploaded to Instagram. Prince didn’t alter the photos, other than minor cropping, and added his comments around them. Some of the pieces at the showing sold for nearly $100,000, causing ire among photographers.

Graham had previously sent a cease and desist letter to Prince and the gallery claiming that one of the works was an infringement of his photo of a Rastafarian lighting a joint. Prince has a lengthy history of appropriating photographs for his work, famously being sued in 2009 by Patrick Cariou but, in that case, the court ruled that most of Prince’s work was a fair use, eventually prompting a settlement between the two on the remaining works.

3: ‘New Girl’ Copyright Case Vetoed By Judge

Finally today, Patrick Hipes at Deadline Hollywood reports that a U.S. District Court Judge has granted summary judgment in favor of Fox and other defendants in the lawsuit over the TV show New Girl.

The lawsuit was filed by Stephanie Counts and Shari Gold, who claimed that the hit show was based on their pilot Square One. They claimed that the script for Square One had been passed around to many connected with New Girl and that Fox, rather than working with them, took key ideas as their own. To bolster this, they listed what they saw as several key similarities between the two works.

However, the judge saw things differently ruling that no reasonable jury could find substantial similarities between the works and that there was evidence that the defendants had access to Square One. As such, the just dismissed the lawsuit with a summary judgment.

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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