3 Count: One More Thing…
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1: Music Labels Win $46.7 Million From Internet Provider in Piracy Trial
First off today, Blake Brittain at Reuters reports that the internet service provider Astound Broadband has been ordered to pay a group of music labels $46.7 million over their alleged contributory infringement of some 1,400 copyright-protected works.
The lawsuit was filed by the labels against Grande Communications, which is now owned by Astound Broadband. According to the labels, Grande Communications did not do enough to curb piracy on its service, including ignoring repeat infringers as per a requirement of the law.
On Thursday, a jury awarded the labels a total of $46.7 million in the case. The ruling follows similar verdicts against Cox Communications, which was for a total of $1 billion. An appeal in that case is ongoing. Grande had previously argued that the notices filed with them were flawed and that the damages at issue were excessive.
2: Pirated e-Book Site Z-Library Vanishes – Sending College Students Into a Panic
Next up today, Jude Cramer at Fast Company reports that Z-Library, a notorious piracy site for college textbooks, has gone dart and left many of its users scrambling for alternatives.
It is unknown at the time what caused the closure, though some are reporting that loading the site claims it was seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service. However, the Postal Service claims that this was in error and that their inspectors were not involved.
Z-Library was recently targeted in complaints to the United States Trade Representative saying that it is “killing” efforts by publishers to monetize their books as their products would often appear on the site within hours of publication.
3: Apple’s Copyright Claims Ripped Down a Fan’s Archival WWDC YouTube channel
Finally today, Emma Roth at The Verge reports that Apple has filed a series of takedown notices against a channel that hosted archival footage of previous Apple Worldwide Developer Conferences (WWDC) keynotes, resulting in the closure of the channel.
The channel was operated by Brendan Shanks, who had uploaded a series of WWDC videos going back to the early 2000s. In addition to WWDC footage, the channel had archived advertisements, internal training videos and more.
However, the channel is gone after it was flooded with copyright notices filed by Apple. Though most acknowledge that the copyright to the videos is owned by Apple, it was one of the few places such archival footage could be found, as it’s not made widely available by Apple itself.
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