3 Count: Furniture Fight

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Copyright Infringers Could Be Held Liable Under the Lanham Act Following Furniture Dispute

First off today, Anisa Noorassa at World Trademark Review reports that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court decision that found liability under the copyright act is not mutually exclusive to liability under the Lanham Act.

The case was filed by Jason Scott Collection (JSC), who sued fellow furniture maker Trendily Furniture for both copyright and trademark infringement over three designs that Trendily allegedly copied from them. The judge in the case granted summary judgment on the copyright claim, awarding them $20,000, and then held a bench trial regarding the trademark ones. There, the judge again sided with JSC, awarding nearly $133,000 in prospective annual profits.

However, Trendily appealed the ruling, alleging that the copyright award precluded the trademark damages. The Ninth Circuit sided again with JSC, ruling that the two issues were separate and not mutually exclusive to one another. As such, the court upheld the lower court decision, including an award for attorneys’ fees.

2: RIAA Targets ‘AI Hub’ Discord Users Over Copyright Infringement

Next up today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) has sent a letter to Discord, asking for the closure of a popular server that is focused on generating AI music.

The server in question, AI Hub, has over 140,000 members and is a place where users can exchange information on audio AI models, in particular for creating “new” songs that sound like existing artists.

However, the RIAA argues that this is a copyright infringement and has sent a letter to Discord, referring to the server is a haven for piracy and should be shuttered as well as repeat infringers be removed from Discord altogether. This has been further backed by a subpoena sent to discord with the letter that requested all identifying information for users of that particular server.

3: British Museum Removes Writer’s Translations of Chinese Poetry After Being Accused of Copyright Infringement

Finally today, Karen Ho at ARTnews reports that the British Museum has removed a series of poetry translations after the original translator claimed that they were used without her permission.

The translations were of poems by Chinese author Qiu Jin. However, when the museum chose to feature the works, they used translations by Canadian author and translator Yilin Wang. This prompted Wang to call out the museum over Twitter, highlighting the effort and time it takes to create such translations.

The museum, for their part, removed the translations and, in a statement, said they had apologized to Wang. They further stated that the lack of attribution was “unintentional” and have offered “financial payment” for the use of them.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.