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1: Twitter Removes Trump’s Video Featuring Music From the Dark Knight for Copyright Infringement
First off today, Nick Statt at The Verge reports that a video tweeted by President Donald Trump has been deleted from Twitter following a copyright complaint from Warner Bros. Pictures.
The video, which was a promotional piece for President Trump’s upcoming Presidential reelection bid, attempted to recreate the tone and feel of The Dark Knight while using a modified version of a quote commonly misattributed to Mahatma Ghandi. However, the video also featured music from the film itself and the producers of the short film did not acquire a license to use it.
This is not the first time President Trump has had content removed from Twitter on copyright grounds. In February, R.E.M. objected to his use of their video for Everybody Hurts and filed a takedown notice on that Twitter, getting the video removed.
2: Operators of Three Pirate Sites Face Prison & $560 Million in Damages
Next up today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that a trial has begun in Spain for four men accused of operating three separate pirate websites. If convicted, they face up to four years in prison and may be ordered to pay damages of up to 170 million euros ($190 million).
The men owned or are otherwise connected to the now-defunct pirate sites SeriesYonkis, PeliculasYonkis and VideosYonkis, sites that specialized in pirated video content of various types. A local industry group, EGEDA, claims that the four men should owe a total of around 546 million euros ($615 million) in damages but a report from the prosecutor office is thought to limit the cap to the 170 million euros amount.
Back in 2014 the sites reached an agreement with rightsholders to stop linking to pirate content and instead focus on legitimate sources. However, the move came after the sites were bought and sold multiple times by the defendants, often turning large profits.
3: Reddit’s Piracy Subreddit Is Purging a Decade of Posts
Finally today, Matthew Gault at Motherboard reports that the subreddit /r/piracy is purging nearly 10 years of its history following a series of warnings from Reddit that the community is attracting too many copyright notice.
The community was founded in 2009 and is meant to be a place to discuss tips and tricks for obtaining pirated content online. However, one of the rules of the subreddit is to not link to copyright-protected material directly. Despite that, the moderators of the group were recently contacted by Reddit saying that they had received an unusually high number of copyright complaints and that, if things did not change, the whole subreddit would be banned.
Even though some of the complaints dealt with posts that weren’t linking to infringing material, the moderators have decided to take drastic action. They are purging all but the last six months of the community’s history in a bid to reduce further copyright notices. The moderators are doing this through a script and expect it to take several weeks to finish the process.
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