1: Appeals Court Reviews Lawsuit Claiming ‘The Purge’ Was Stolen
First off today, Ashley Cullins at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that Universal Pictures is asking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court decision from a lawsuit over the film The Purge.
The lawsuit was filed by Douglas Jordan-Benel, who claimed that the movie was based on his screenplay Settler’s Day. Universal sought to have the lawsuit dismissed but through California’s anti-SLAPP law, which is designed to block lawsuits that were a threat to free speech by dismissing them quickly and requiring plaintiffs to pay legal costs.
However, the lower court judge ruled that the SLAPP statute didn’t apply because there was no First Amendment issue. As such, the judge never looked at the second part of the SLAPP test, which looks at probability of success. Universal is appealing that decision.
2: Artist Kader Attia Files Plagiarism Lawsuit over French Rap Video
Next up today, Benjamin Sutton at Hyperallergic reports that French artist Kader Attia has filed a lawsuit against Universal Music over a music video that he claims is infringing his copyright in a previous art installation.
The music video was for French rappers Dosseh and Nekfeu. The video featured a scene with dozens of foil-clad people crouched on the ground. According to Attia, this was based on his art installation named Ghost, which had over 100 crouching figures made out of foil.
Attia, in a statement, clarified that he is not suing the rappers directly but feels that Universal is responsible. The music video for the song has already been removed from YouTube.
3: Denuvo Removed From Doom After Game Gets Cracked
Finally today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that the digital rights management (DRM) software Denuvo has been removed from the popular video game Doom, likely due to a refund clause that was enacted after the code was cracked.
Denuvo is a DRM product that, for a long period of time, was considered “uncrackable”. Games protected by Denuvo would routinely go more than a year without an unprotected version being leaked online. However, more recently, hackers have found ways to break it more easily, resulting in Doom getting cracked within about four months of release.
While those four months are critical, it may have been quick enough to trigger a reported refund clause. However, that cause also requires the developer to remove Denuvo from the game. Doom is the second game to have removed the software post-release as the adventure game Inside did it as well after it was cracked in just 6 weeks.
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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