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1: Marshmello Facing Copyright Infringement Lawsuit From Producer Arty
First off today, Ryan Reed at Rolling Stone reports that musician Marshmello is facing a lawsuit from another EDM musician, DJ Arty, over alleged copyright infringement in Marshmello’s collaboration with Bastille Happier.
According to the lawsuit, Happier is an infringement of DJ Arty’s remix of the OneRepublic song I Lived. As such, he’s suing all of the songwriters involved in Happier and is seeking “actual damages in addition to Defendants’ profits both domestically and relating to foreign sales of other exploitation of ‘Happier’ that were manufactured, distributed or otherwise infringed domestically.”
The lawsuit has raised eyebrows because DJ Arty is claiming that it was a remix that was infringed. However, he’s hired Richard Busch, who previously represented the Marvin Gaye estate in the Blurred Lines lawsuit, as his attorney.
2: Universal Music Fights Artists Who Wish to Terminate Copyright Grants
Next up today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that Universal Music has filed a motion to dismiss in an attempted class action lawsuit against them over artists attempting to reclaim their copyright.
Under the current law, creators who granted their copyright (or a license) to a third party to terminate that agreement after 35 years. In the music industry, this means a great deal of music from the early 80s is coming up for possible termination but some artists, including John Waite and Joe Ely, claim that Universal is simply ignoring or refusing to honor their notices of termination.
As such, the duo have filed a lawsuit that they hope to make a class action lawsuit. However, Universal has filed a motion to dismiss on a variety of grounds including the artists’ use of middle men, meaning the artists may not be the grantor, the timing of the contract that was signed (in particular if it was before or after 1978, when the law took effect) and whether the works involved were “works for hire” and don’t quality for termination.
3: RIAA Obtains Subpoena to Expose ‘Infringing’ Cloudflare Users
Finally today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that the RIAA has obtained a subpoena from a federal court in the District of Columbia that will require Cloudflare to turn over the identities behind six domains that the RIAA says used Cloudflare’s services for the purpose of distributing pirated content.
To achieve this, the RIAA request what is known as a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) subpoena. Such a subpoena does not go before a judge, but rather, is signed off by a court clerk. By using this, the RIAA is hoping to compel Cloudflare to turn over any information they have about the operators of these sites, including, “Names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, payment information, account update and account history.”
Though Cloudflare, which operates as a content delivery network, will often turn over information related to the site’s source hosting, it requires a subpoena to turn over any additional information it has. All of the sites involved are currently still active and using Cloudflare, however, they have also removed the specific content mentioned in the subpoena.
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