3 Count: Dark Horse Rides Again

Too obscure to be infringed?

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1: Katy Perry and ‘Dark Horse’ Collaborators Appeal Plagiarism Judgment

First off today, Variety reports that Katy Perry and others connected with the 2013 hit song Dark Horse have filed an appeal in the lawsuit over it and are asking the court to either overturn an earlier jury verdict or grant them a new trial.

The lawsuit was filed by rapper Michael Gray, who had claimed that Dark Horse was an infringement of his 2008 song Joyful Noise. A jury previously ruled in favor of Gray and handed down a $2.8 million judgment against Perry and others involved with the song. However, according to Perry, the jury’s verdict is not supported by fact and the appeal notes both differences between the songs it claims the jury ignored and the fact that Joyful Noise was, according to them, extremely obscure.

With the appeal they are claiming that no reasonable jury could have found in favor of Gray and they are asking the appeals court to either grant them a new trial or to outright overturn the verdict.

2: CBC Sues the Conservative Party Over Copyright, ‘Moral Rights’ of Journalists

Next up today, Michael Higgins at the National Post reports that, in Canada, the CBC has filed a lawsuit against the Conservative Party claiming that it used excerpts from two of its reports on their website in violation of moral rights of those reporters.

According to the lawsuit, the Conservative Party used excerpts from anchor Rosemary Barton and reporter John Paul Tasker on their website. According to the CBC, the usage of the material not only represented an unauthorized use of their material, but opens them and their reporters up to allegations of bias.

The Conservative Party quickly removed the materials in question and says that the use of just 17-seconds of material likely allowed under the nation’s fair dealing provisions. Experts agree that the Conservative Party likely has solid arguments along those lines.

3: Twitter Suspended Carpe Donktum, Prolific Pro-Trump Meme Creator, for a Copyright Violation

Finally today, Makena Kelly at The Verge reports that Carpe Donktum, a prolific meme creator and supporter of President Trump was briefly suspended from Twitter over allegations of copyright infringement.

The account rose to prominence over the past week when a video that was created by a group connected to it showed the President killing journalists and critics. Shortly after the video debuted, the account was briefly suspended but Twitter says the issue was a copyright violation, not the content of the video.

The account quickly returned but spent much of the day yesterday re-uploading old content. It is unclear what content was responsible for the copyright violation though Twitter has said that the controversial video was not the cause of the suspension.

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