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1: Katy Perry’s Lawyers Request Retrial in ‘Dark Horse’ Copyright Case: ‘A Travesty of Justice’
First off today, Chris Eggertsen at Billboard reports that Katy Perry and others behind the song Dark Horse are asking for either a retrial or for the jury verdict to be outright tossed in their ongoing case over the track.
The case began when Christian rapper Flame, real name Marcus Gray, filed a lawsuit claiming that Dark Horse was an infringement of his 2008 track Joyful Noise. The case recently went to a jury, which found in favor of Gray and awarded him $2.78 million in damages.
However, now the defendants are arguing that the jury verdict should be set aside, saying that the issue of infringement is a matter of law and, according to that, there is no doubt that no infringement took place. Failing a complete tossing of the verdict, the defendants are asking for a retrial and have also stated their intent to appeal should that not happen.
2: Movie Companies Sue YTS Users, Including One Who Hid Behind a VPN
Next up today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that the movie company Wicked Nevada has filed a lawsuit against several users of the YTS torrent site but its the information the company has, not the lawsuit itself, that’s turning heads.
Wicked Nevada previously sued YTS itself over the film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, And Vile. They won a consent judgment against the YTS admin, who agreed to pay $150,000 in damages and not to share torrents of the film.
Now, following that lawsuit, Wicken Nevada has been suing users of YTS but, in at least one case, the user was identified despite his use of a VPN. This has led to speculation that YTS, as part of their judgment, handed over user information, including email addresses, to Wicked Nevada.
3: New Details Emerge About Rolling Stones ‘Copyright Dump’ of Unreleased 1969 Songs
Finally today, Jem Aswad at Variety reports that Abkco, a music distributor, posted a collection of rare Rolling Stones tracks on YouTube on December 31, 2019, but only left them up for a few hours before making them private.
The reason for the move was to beat the clock on a European copyright law that requires all such tracks to “lawfully communicated to the public” within 50 years or lapse into the public domain. The tracks, mostly from 1969, were about to hit that 50-year mark so they uploaded the songs, albeit with obfuscation, and then quickly removed them in a bid to beat that deadline.
However, there is some doubt as to whether this meets the requirements for lawful publication, with many experts expressing doubt that it does. Also, there were questions as to how Abkco obtained the tracks, which a music distributor would not normally have. According to reports, these were not tracks from Abkco’s vault, but rather, were sent to Abkco as part of the work on the 2012 Stones documentary Crossfire Hurricane.
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