3 Count: Extradition Decision

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1: Kim Dotcom Can be Extradited, New Zealand High Court Rules

First off today, the BBC reports that New Zealand’s High Court has ruled that Kim Dotcom is eligible for extradition to the United States despite a small victory for Dotcom during the appeal.

In January 2012 Kim Dotcom was arrested and his file sharing site Megaupload was shuttered in a join U.S. and New Zealand police action. The U.S. has sought extradition of Dotcom, who lives in New Zealand but Dotcom, has been fighting the process. Now New Zealand’s High Court has upheld a lower court decision saying that Dotcom is eligible for extradition.

The court did agree with Dotcom that he can not be extradited for the copyright infringement violations as those are not crimes in New Zealand. However, he is also charged with racketeering and fraud, charges he can be extradited for. Dotcom has vowed to appeal the decision and said he expects at least two more years of legal wrangling before any possible extradition.

2: Google and Microsoft Agree Crackdown on Piracy Sites in Search Results

Next up today, Arjun Kharpal at CNBC reports that Google and Microsoft have pledged to demote copyright infringing sites in their U.K. search results as a means to avoid legislation or other government intervention.

The agreement was brokered by the U.K. Intellectual Property Office (IPO), which referred to it as a “landmark” deal. Currently, though both Bing and Google allow rightsholders to request removal of specific pages for copyright infringement, many well-known pirate sites continue to perform well in the search results.

The agreement, which had been rumored for some time, was finalized on February 9 and will begin impacting results by June 1. The expected impact will be the removal of piracy search terms from autocomplete suggestions and from the front page of Google. It is unclear if the change will also impact U.S. search results.

3: Justin Bieber Accused of Faking Illness to Miss Copyright Deposition

Finally today, Music News reports that Justin Bieber has been accused of faking an illness in order to get out of a deposition in the copyright infringement lawsuit over his hit song Sorry.

Sued by singer Casey Daniel, known better as White Hinterland, filed the lawsuit claiming that Sorry used a prominent looped sample from her 2014 track Ring the Bell. She also claims that other elements of the tracks are extremely similar. A deposition had been schedule for February 8 with Daniel’s lawyers flying to Los Angeles from Nashville to accommodate Bieber. However, just hours before the deposition, Daniel’s lawyers were informed that Bieber was ill and would not be able to make the disposition.

However, Daniel’s team said that they found video of Bieber on YouTube drinking beers and partying until the early hours of the morning the day of the deposition. Now the plaintiffs are saying they are willing to make up the deposition in early March but are requesting that Bieber fly to Nashville for it.

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.