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1: Warner Bros. Sues Woman with New Mexico Connection for Copyright Fraud
First off today, Francesca Washington at KRQE reports that Warner Bros. and the estate of Lorraine Warren have filed a lawsuit against Bea Loyd, a woman that worked with Warren in the 1990s and, according to the lawsuit, was attempting to illegally capitalize on the success of the Conjuring movie franchise.
Warner Bros. owns the rights to the works of Ed and Lorraine Warren and turned those works into the series of Conjuring films. However, the studio alleges that Loyd, who worked with Lorraine Warren in the 1990s, was selling books and recordings based on the series and was promoting events where she claimed there would be an appearance by Lorraine Warren.
The studio is asking the court to order Lloyd to destroy anything she created and they are seeking monetary damages in the case. They further allege that Loyd has been using aliases to register trademarks and copyrights related to the intellectual property and that she has even forged Lorraine Warren’s signature to do it.
2: Popular Pirate eBook Site Ebookee.org Has Domain Suspended
Next up today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that Ebookee.org, one of the most popular sites for ebook piracy, has been shuttered after its domain was seized.
The site did not host any infringing material directly but instead provided a search engine that pointed to download links on other sites. The site recently attracted significant attention from the major book publishers and it became the subject of over 850,000 DMCA notices sent to Google.
It is currently unknown why the domain was suspended but the site does not load at this time and its domain records have been updated to indicate it was suspended. A Facebook page for the site is mentioning a new domain but it is unclear if it’s an official move.
Note: This article has been updated as the original source used was a plagiarism of Torrentfreak. The attribution has been updated accordingly.
3: Everyone Invited: Great Gatsby Copyright to End in 2021
Finally today, Hillel Italie at the Associated Press reports that The Great Gatsby will lapse into the public domain on January 1st, 2021, bringing to an end 95 years of copyright protection.
The novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald has become an American classic and is required reading for students all over the country. However, since it was published in 1925, the copyright for the book will lapse in the coming year, making it one of the first major works to become public domain since works resumed entering it in 2019.
A representative for the estate said that they are “now looking to a new period and trying to view it with enthusiasm, knowing some exciting things may come.” Once the book lapses, anyone will be free to make/sell copies of it, create sequels/prequels of it or otherwise adapt it into new works.
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