3 Count: Declining Genius

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

1: US Supreme Court Declines to Consider Genius v Google Dispute

First off today, Chris Cooke at Complete Music Update reports that the United States Supreme Court has declined to hear the Genius v Google case, allowing a lower court ruling and Google victory to stand.

Genius sued Google alleging that the search engine was scraping content off its website and displaying the lyrics in search results. Though the site had used some clever technical tricks to prove the copying, the site ran into the issue that it doesn’t own the lyrics that it displays, it just holds a license to display them.

As such, Genius opted not to sue for copyright infringement, but instead alleged breach of contract. Specifically, they alleged Google violated the terms of use on the site itself. However, Google argued that copyright law preempts the contract claims in this case, with both the district court and the Court of Appeals siding with Google. As such, the case was tossed, though Genius appealed to the Supreme Court. That appeal has been declined, letting the lower court rulings stand.

2: DAZN Urges Italy to Introduce Tougher Rules to Fight TV Piracy

Next up today, Reuters reports that, in Italy, the sports video service DAZN has released a statement asking the nation’s government to approve a bill that would “Enable authorities to block illegal platforms within 30 minutes of initial complaints.”

According to DAZN, pirate streaming has grown significantly in the country, with rates surging 26% in 2022 versus the year prior. They further claim that piracy has harmed their ability to pay large amounts for TV rights for sporting events, noting that Italy’s Serie A league only brings in half what the UK’s Premier League brings in per year in TV rights.

DAZN is currently working to secure domestic broadcasting rights for Serie A for the 2024-2029 period. However, the league has already fallen short of its target of 1.2 billion Euros ($1.32 billion) per season, forcing them to strike up private negotiations to get a better deal.

3: The Pirate Bay Reopens its Doors to New Members After Four Years

Finally today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that The Pirate Bay has reopened its doors to new registrations after more than four years, enabling users to create new accounts and upload new torrents to the site.

The Pirate Bay is one of the internet’s longest-running and most-infamous pirate websites. Though BitTorrent piracy has taken a backseat to streaming piracy in recent years, the site has continued, despite a variety of legal challenges.

However, one challenge that the site wasn’t able to easily overcome was the issue of spam and malware. In May 2019, the site closed its system for registering a new account, citing a wave of spam and malware as the reason. Now that system has reopened, albeit with human checks to ensure new accounts are not in violation of the site’s rules. In addition to the checks, new accounts are limited to 50 uploads per day, another tool to prevent spam.

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