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1: Paul McCartney Settles with Sony/ATV to Reclaim Beatles’ Song Copyright
First off today, Reuters is reporting that Paul McCartney has reached a settlement with Sony/ATV publishing over his attempt to reclaim the copyrights to many of his most popular compositions, including many written for The Beatles.
In January, McCartney had filed a lawsuit seeking a declaration that he was eligible for copyright reversion (or termination as it is often called). Copyright reversion allows an original creator to terminate any license grants or copyright transfers after a period of time and, for McCartney, that time was coming up early next year. McCartney had sought a declaration from a U.S. court that he was eligible for copyright reversion.
The reason for the declaration was because another UK band, Duran Duran, lost a case on copyright reversion before UK courts, with the courts there ruling that they were not eligible to reclaim control of their work. McCartney was aiming to bring the same question before U.S. courts. However, the lawsuit has been settled and the terms of the settlement are confidential.
2: Twitter Suspends Accounts of The Fader and Other Popular Music Sites
Next up today, Kaitlyn Tiffany at The Verge reports that Twitter suspended the accounts of The Fader and several other popular music sites over a copyright notices filed by major media organizations.
The Fader is a popular music blog and currently has over 530,000 followers on Twitter. However, the account was suspended for a time along with several other music publications. Though initially the reason was not known, several of the other sites came forward to say that their suspensions were over copyright claims filed by major media companies.
Suspensions of high profile Twitter accounts have been becoming more common recently, but most of the suspensions have involved hate speech, not copyright notices. However, as of this writing The Fader’s account has been restored and seems to be operating normally.
3: Zillow and McMansion Hell Bury the Hatchet After Nastygram Rouses Internet’s Ire
Finally today, Devin Coldewey at TechCrunch reports that, following a brief legal tussle with real estate listing site Zillow, the parody site McMansion Hell has returned and will not remove any posts it made using images from Zillow.
Zillow sent the site a cease an desist letter claiming that its use of images contained in Zillow’s database was a violation of the Zillow’s terms of service. McMansion Hell shut down for a time, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation responded on the site’s behalf, saying that McMansion Hell’s operator, Kate Wagner, never agreed to their terms of service and that the use of the images for parodying the homes is a probable fair use.
The three sides struck an agreement. McMansion Hell can return and keep all of its previous posts but must source future images from elsewhere.
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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