3 Count: Ripped Jurisdiction

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1: Supreme Court Denies Petition from YouTube Rippers ‘FLVTO’ and ‘2Conv’

First off today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that the U.S. Supreme Court has denied a petition by a pair of YouTube rippers, sending the case back to the district court so that it can resume.

The case pits various record labels against FLVTO and 2Conv. When they initially sued, the labels likely didn’t expect much resistance but the site’s Russian operator, Tofig Kurbanov, fought back and initially got the lawsuit dismissed on jurisdictional ground. According to Kurbanov, he is based in Russia and the site doesn’t deliberately do business with the U.S. or the state of Virginia.

The lower court agreed with him and went to dismiss the lawsuit on those grounds. However, the Fourth Circuit overturned that ruled that the court could hear the case. The rippers appealed to the Supreme Court but the Supreme Court has declined to hear the case.

2: Copyright Battle Over Stephen King’s ‘Dark Tower’ Hits 11th Circuit

Next up today, Kayla Goggin at Courthouse News Service reports that the battle over Stephen King’s The Dark Tower was heard before to the Fourth Circuit as the plaintiff tries to appeal the lower court’s decision.

The lawsuit was filed by author Benjamin DuBay, who sued King, his publisher and others involved in the work alleging that the protagonist of The Dark Tower series was an infringement of his earlier-created character The Rook, which first appeared in a 1977 horror/fantasy comic magazine.

The district judge tossed the case finding that the similarities were limited to non-protectable elements. King himself also claimed to be working on The Dark Tower long before The Rook ever appeared in a published work. Despite that, DuBay appealed the ruling and the case was heard before the Fourth Circuit last week. There is no indication as to when a ruling will be handed down.

3: Shueisha Releases Official Statement on Recent Twitter Copyright Takedowns

Finally today, Nick Valdez at Comicbook.com reports that the anime studio Shueisha has released an official statement regarding a recent series of takedowns on their content. In that statement, they called the takedowns a “Copyright infringement scam” and denied all involvement in the notices.

The story began last weekend when fans were hit with a series of takedown requests regarding content owned by Shueisha. These notices included takedowns for gifs, clips and even fan art.

Shueisha also said that they are looking into who is making the claims in their name and say that nothing has changed as far as their policies go when it comes to posting certain kinds of content on social media.

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