3 Count: That’s All Folks

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1: Warner Bros. Flags Its Own Website as a Piracy Portal

First off today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that Warner Brothers Studios, in a copyright notice sent to Google, targeted several non-infringing sites, including their own home page.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), rightsholders, such as Warner Brothers, can file takedown notices with search engines to have infringing webpages removed from their indexes. However, in a notice filed with Google on behalf of Warner Brothers by Vobile Inc., several legitimate sites were included including several pages.

When filing notices for various Warner films, including The Dark Knight, The Matrix and The Lucky One, Vobile targeted Warner’s own site as well as other legitimate pages, including IMDB. Google has not taken action on the site and, as of this writing, is investigating the claim.

2: Government Includes Internet Broadcasting Under Copyright Act

Next up today, The India Times reports that the government in India has decided to include internet broadcasting as a form of broadcasting under its copyright act, putting it on parallel with cable and over the air broadcast television legally.

The decision came from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion in an office memorandum. This has potentially major impacts for statutory licensing of musical and literary works in the country, both of which apply to broadcast media.

Currently in India, broadcast media can obtain statutory licenses to use such material without permission from rightsholders, though paying a licensing fee. That ability may now extend to internet broadcasting.

3: Lawyer’s Fee Tally Exceeds $100k for Dubious Indy Skyline Photo Suits

Finally today, Dave Stafford at The Indiana Lawyer reports that photographer Richard Bell has been ordered to pay some $93,871.15 in attorneys’ fees and costs for filing complaints against some 25 defendants that he thought had misused a photo of the Indianapolis skyline that he took.

Specifically, the court took umbrage to the way Bell and his attorney bundled the lawsuits to save court costs but enjoined defendants inappropriately. It also believed that Bell simply filed the lawsuits as a means to offer quick settlements to defendants.

One of Bell’s lawsuits was tossed at the district court level and that decision was upheld on appeal. The judge in the case had previously awarded Bell’s defendants costs, bringing the total that he now owes to $126,173.72.

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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