3 Count: Still Sanctioned

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1: 2nd Circuit affirms nationwide sanctions against copyright attorney Liebowitz

First off today, Blake Brittain at Reuters reports that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the non-monetary damages against attorney Richard Liebowitz, saying that the judge did not overreach in imposing them.

Liebowitz is an attorney who earned a reputation for an aggressive litigation strategy that saw him file over 1,000 lawsuits on behalf of photographers in federal court. However, at least some of those cases began to have issues including false claims and Liebowitz himself was accused of lying to the court and engaging in other unethical actions. As such, he was suspended in November 2020 and handed down a variety of both monetary and non-monetary sanctions.

Liebowitz appealed that decision to the Second Circuit, and that court has now upheld the non-monetary sanctions. According to the court, the judge did not overstep his discretion when he imposed nationwide sanctions on Liebowitz, noting that he had engaged in similar behavior across the country. A decision on the monetary sanctions, which includes more than $100,000 in fines, is still due.

2: Sony Music Complained Against Ravi Shankar Prasad to Twitter Alleging Copyright Violation

Next up today, Aishwarya Paliwal at India Today reports that the Ravi Shankar Prasad, the country’s Union Information Technology Minister has had his Twitter account restricted after a copyright claim was filed by Sony Music Entertainment.

According to the report, Prasad shared the popular AR Rahman song Maa Tujhe Salaam, which drew the copyright takedown from Sony. This resulted in the account being temporarily locked and Prasad from being able to access it for some time on Friday.

The restriction was later removed and Twitter changed it into a warning, giving Prasad access to his account again. In a statement, Twitter said that the simplest way to prevent this moving forward was for Prasad to not post any copyright-infringing content to his account.

3: Ubisoft Removes ‘Goldeneye’ Far Cry 5 Maps Fan Spent Three Years Making

Finally today, Ari Notis at Kotaku reports that MGM has ordered the removal of a series of fan-made maps for the Game Far Cry 5 due to alleged copyright infringement of the James Bond franchise.

The fan was a YouTuber named Krollywood. He had spent years of his life recreating levels from the 1997 James Bond game GoldenEye 007 using the editor available in the 2018 Ubisoft game Far Cry 5. He had published his maps to Ubisoft’s collection of user-generated maps for other gamers to play.

However, those maps are no more as MGM contacted Ubisoft and got the maps removed. MGM has taken similar action against other fan projects celebrating GoldenEye 007 including GoldenEye 25, a fan remake using the Unreal Engine.

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