3 Count: Expanded Blockade

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1: Judge Suzanne Barnett Named Interim Chief Of The Copyright Royalty Board

First off today, Ian Courtney at CelebrityAccess reports that the Library of Congress has appointed Judge Suzanne Barnett as the new interim Chief Copyright Royalty Judge.

The Copyright Royalty Board is a three-judge panel that oversees certain statutory licenses that are a part of U.S. copyright law. As such, they have a direct role in determining what streaming services pay for some of their licenses.

Judge Barnett replaces Judge Jesse Feder, who stepped down after serving two years. She will serve alongside Judge David Strickler and Judge Steve Ruwe on the panel and the CRB is currently overseeing a fresh round of negotiations over music publishing royalty rates. Judge Barnett has served in this position before and will only be in the job as the search for a permanent replacement is underway.

2: Major Publishers Expand Sci-Hub, Libgen and Ebook Piracy Blocking

Next up today, Andy Maxwell at Torrentfreak writes that academic publishers including both Elsevier and Springer Nature have obtained a court order that will block more domains associated with Sci-Hub, Libgen and various Ebook piracy websites.

The order, which was handed down by a UK court, orders ISPs in the countries to block additional domains connected with the sites. Sites like Sci-Hub and Libgen have become a popular way to access scientific papers and journals that are locked behind a paywall. This has earned them the ire of scientific journal publishers, that often depend on subscriptions and fees to stay in business.

This is actually the third round of such site-blocking injunctions for the group. They obtained their initial one in February, another in September, and now they are adding new domains that all major UK ISPs will have to block.

3: U.S. Court Orders Google to Disclose Manga Piracy Site Operator

Finally today, Kyodo News reports that a court in the United States has ordered Google to disclose the identity of those that are behind a large manga piracy site.

The move comes at the request of a group of Japanese publishers, who have joined forces to fight alleged piracy of their works. This time, they were targeting the site Manga Bank, which opened in late 2019. The site itself is shuttered, but the publishers still wanted information about the alleged operators, possibly to set the stage for further litigation.

The move comes as Japan itself has begun to crack down on manga piracy, with the country enacting a new law last year that banned the downloading of such books and further tightened the rules around the format.

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