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1: ‘Stranger Things’ Duffer Brothers Fail To Get Plagiarism Case Tossed; Trial Set For Next Month
First off today, Dominic Patten at Deadline reports that, even as the third season of Stranger Things is preparing to launch on Netflix, a lawsuit against the show’s creators is heading toward an anticipated trial next month.
In the case, show creators Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer are being sued by Charlie Kessler, who claims that he pitched the idea to the brothers in 2014 and even says the Duffer brothers used the working title, The Montauk Project, when developing the series.
The Duffers had filed for summary judgment claiming that they had come up with the idea for the show well before their meeting with Kessler. However, according to the judge, they couldn’t provide enough proof to back up that claim meaning that the dispute now comes down to issues that must be determined by a jury. Barring a last-minute change, the trial is set to begin May 6.
2: Scribd’s Copyright Robocops Are Automatically Taking Down The Mueller Report
Next up today, Matt Novak at Gizmodo reports that the popular document sharing website Scribd is accused of getting a bit too aggressive with its copyright enforcement as their automated tools pull down copies of the Mueller Report, despite the fact that the work is in the public domain.
The document, which recounts President Trumps contacts with Russian associates and attempts to hinder the investigation, was created by the US Department of Justice. That makes it a work of the federal government, placing it immediately in the public domain.
However, for reasons that are unclear, Sribd’s automated copyright infringement detection tools began flagging the document, removing it en masse. This included a copy of the document uploaded by Quartz and other news outlets. This came as the DOJ website was overburdened by people trying to download the report and others were trying to obtain text-searchable versions of the document.
3: Online Pirates Bring ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8 Premiere Viewership to Eye-Popping Levels
Finally today, Chris Morris at Fortune reports that the latest season of Game of Thrones may be a cultural phenomenon, but only a small percentage of the people watching it are doing so legally.
The news comes from the piracy monitoring service Muso, which reports that, while 17 million tuned into HBO for the season premiere, the episode was downloaded or viewed illegally more than 54 million times in the first 24 hours alone.
Most of the viewings were for illegal streaming websites and most of the visits came from India and China. The United States was still the third-highest country for illegal views of the episode.
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