3 Count: Roc-A-Fella

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1: Rap star Jay Z prevails in lawsuit over Roc-A-Fella logo

First off today, Jonathan Stempel at Reuters reports that a federal judge has dismissed a copyright infringement and breach of contract lawsuit against Jay Z over the design of the logo for his Roc-A-Fella record label.

The lawsuit was filed by Dwayne Walker, a designer who created the logo for Roc-A-Fella co-founder Damon “Dame” Dash. According to Walker, his deal with the label required them to pay royalties to him. However, he claims the label has failed to do so and he was suing for damages.

But the judge disagreed, finding that there was insufficient evidence that such a contract even existed. In fact, the only person who testified in court to such a deal with Walker himself. As such, the judge tossed the lawsuit but Walker has said he is planning an appeal

2: Record Labels Move to Dismiss Lawsuit Over 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.”

Next up today, Ashley Cullins at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that attorneys representing rap artist 50 Cent and others connected to him have hit back against a lawsuit over 50 Cent’s song P.I.M.P. 

The lawsuit, filed by artist Brandon Parrott, claims that P.I.M.P. is a copyright infringement of his composition BAMBA. He claims that, while the two sides have a agreement, 50 Cents’ team misused the agreement and had Parrott sign over his works even though he was not the sole composer and the amount offered was unreasonably low.

However, attorneys for the rap star have filed a response saying that Parrott has been claiming royalties for more than a decade and that Parrott’s contributions are now owned by 50 Cent, who is free to use them as he likes. Parrott is representing himself in this case.

3: Cloudflare: We Can’t Shut Down Pirate Sites

Finally today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that CDN provider Cloudflare has asked a California court to dismiss a copyright complaint filed against saying that it can do nothing to shut down piracy sites that use its service.

The lawsuit was filed by adult entertainment publisher ALS, which accuses Cloudflare of providing its services to dozens of pirate websites, including The Pirate Bay, and that they have failed to terminate them as clients when told of what they are hosting.

Cloudflare, however, argues that they are merely an intermediary and that they can not shutter the websites. Even if they cancelled accounts of pirate sites, they would continue to operate (albeit without the benefit of CloudFlare’s services) following a DNS change. They also claim they are not liable for inducement because of that.

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.