3 Count: Kickass Down

Not kicking ass today at least...

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

1: U.S. Indicts KAT File Sharing Owner for Copyright Infringement

First off today, Michael Hirtzer at Reuters reports that the U.S. Department of Justice has indicted Artem Vaulin, a man that they claim operates the site Kickass Torrent (KAT) and have seized the site’s domain. The site, as of this writing, is offline.

Vaulin, who is Ukrainian, was arrested in Poland and the U.S. Department of Justice is seeking to extradite him to the United States to face trial of allegations of criminal copyright infringement. Officials claim that the site has a net worth of more than $54 million and that its been made entirely on the backs of copyrighted works the site has distributed illegally since it’s launch in 2008.

The KAT site is currently down and one of its domains was listed as the 70th most popular site in the world according to Alexa. However, as with other large pirate sites, it’s very likely that it will reemerge, possibly under new stewardship.

2: How’s This for Irony? US Navy Hit with $600m Software Piracy Claim

Next up today, Shaun Nichols at The Register reports that Bitmanagement Software, a Germany-based company, has sued the U.S. Navy for nearly $600 million over alleged unlicensed use of its software.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and accuses the navy of making hundreds of BS Contact Geo, 3D modeling and tracking software the company makes, without a license. According to Bitmanagement, it first started working with the Navy in 2011 and saw some 38 copies purchased with an expected large-scale rollout in 2013.

However, as negotiations proceeded, Bitmanagement says that the Navy installed the software on some 558,466 machines without paying for a license. According to Bitmanagement, the cost of a copy of the software is €800 ($1,068) and it’s from that amount, multipled across the more than 500,000 installations, where the $596 million figure comes from.

3: Will.i.am, Justin Timberlake Move to Dismiss “Damn Girl” Copyright Suit

Finally today, Ashley Cullins at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that Justin Timberlake and Will.i.am have responded to a lawsuit accusing them of an unlicensed sample in their song Damn Girl, saying that the lawsuit should be dismissed.

The lawsuit was filed in February by PK Music Publishing, which alleges that the 2006 song Damn Girl uses elements from the 1969 song A New Day is Here At Last by Perry Kibble.

However, in responding to the lawsuit, Timberlake’s attorneys say that, prior to the release of Damn Girl, they sought and obtained both mechanical and sample use licenses for the song from J.C. Davis, who had originally recorded and released the song. They also secured similar licenses to from Josh Davis, who created an authorized remix of J.C. Davis’ version in 2005.

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.

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