3 Count: Appealing Monkey

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1: The ‘Monkey Selfie’ Monkey Just Filed an Appeal

First off today, Sarah Jeong at Motherboard reports that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has filed an appeal on the behalf of the macaque monkey that’s at the heart of the “monkey selfie” case.

The case centers around a macaque that took the camera from photographer David Slater and snapped a popular “selfie”. PETA sued on behalf of the macaque in hopes of having it declared the copyright holder and claim that Slater and others who used the image were infringers. However, the court ruled that animals do not have standing to sue under the copyright act causing the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

PETA has now appealed that dismissal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the appeal is widely considered a long shot as the ruling was based on a previous case that found that sea animals could not sue for damage caused by Navy sonar.

2: Photographer Sues 2face For Alleged Breach Of Agreement

Next up today, Channels Television in Nigeria reports that photographer Emmanuel Okolo has filed a 120 million Naira ($600,000) lawsuit against local musician Innocent Idibia, better known as 2face, for allegedly infringing photographs Okolo took of 2face’s wedding.

According to the lawsuit, 2face used nearly 150 photos taken by Okolo on his website without permission. The photographer claims that 2face’s wife contacted him about using the images and Okolo sent over watermarked images with the intent of negotiating a license for the non-watermarked versions. Okolo then claims that the watermarked images found their way onto the site.

However, 2face has hit back saying that Okolo was not invited to the wedding and that he later forced the images upon them only to sue over them later. 2face is not only seeking dismissal of the lawsuit, but has filed a 150 million Naira ($750,000) counterclaim.

3: ​Netflix Joins DMCA Takedown Bandwagon to Frustrate Pirates

Finally today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that Netflix is joining other rightsholders in filing Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices with Google to remove links to infringing works.

The DMCA allows rightsholders to request search engines to remove links to infringing materials. Rightsholders, in particular movie studios and record labels, have made widespread use of this, sending millions of removal requests per month to Google alone. Netflix, however, has not done so, even as it has introduced popular original series.

However, that has changed as Netflix starting in December of last year. Through its enforcement partner Vobile, Netflix has targeted nearly 72,000 links for removal, many for its popular House of Cards TV series. Netflix had previously stated it was not worried about the appearance of original content on BitTorrent sites but in recent months has been doing more to clamp down on infringements, including blocking users who use virtual private networks to circumvent geoblocking rules.

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.