3 Count: Repeatedly Infringed

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1: Ninth Circuit Provides Guidance on Repeat Infringer Terminations Under the DMCA

First off today, Winston & Strawn LLP writes that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with the pornographic website Motherless in a dispute over whether it was complying with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and qualified for safe harbor in it.

Motherless was sued by Ventura Content Ltd. over some 33 allegedly infringing clips uploaded to the site. At the lower court, the judge issued a summary judgment in favor of Motherless saying the DMCA protected the site from liability for content uploaded by users. Ventura appealed arguing that Motherless’ screening of uploaded material meant that it was not simply a user-generated content site and, further, that the site did not have a clear repeat infringer policy. As such, they argued that Motherless did not qualify for safe harbor protections under the DMCA.

The Ninth Circuit, however, has upheld the lower court’s findings. It notes both that the screening and categorizing of content does not disqualify it from safe harbor protection and that a repeat infringer policy does not have to be written down, just implemented. The court was convinced that Motherless was adequately compliant with the DMCA to enjoy safe harbor protection, thus causing the court to uphold the summary judgment.

2: Crown to Pay $90,000 for Kim Dotcom Privacy Breach

Next up today, Radio New Zealand reports that, in New Zealand, the Human Rights Review Tribunal has ruled that the national government violated the privacy rights of Kim Dotcom and ordered it to pay $90,000NZ ($65,000 USD) in damages.

Dotcom was arrested in January 2012 in New Zealand for operating the file sharing site Megaupload. Since then he has been the center of a bitter extradition fight as the U.S. government wishes him to face charges here. However, Dotcom has also been very active in suing his local government over his arrest and, as part of that, wrote some 52 requests for information about him collected by the New Zealand government.

Those requests were denied on the grounds that the were “vexatious”, meaning that they were burdensome or pointless. However, the Tribunal has ruled against the government and says that it breached the Privacy Act by refusing those requests.

3: Lana Del Rey and Radiohead ‘Settle Copyright Dispute’

Finally today, Mark Savage at the BBC reports that Lana Del Rey has said her dispute with Radiohead has been settled, bringing an end to a dispute that has brought a great deal of confusion with it.

Earlier this year, Del Rey said that Radiohead was suing her alleging that Del Rey’s song Get Free was too similar to Radiohead’s hit song Creep. Radiohead denied taking legal action and no lawsuit emerged. However, the band did admit to asking for writing credit on the song.

During her set at the Lollapalooza festival in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Del Rey used Get Free as her encore and said, “Now that my lawsuit’s over, I guess I can sing that song any time I want, right?” Radiohead has not responded to the statement and there is no indication what the terms of the settlement were.

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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