3 Count: Wedding Song

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1: YouTube Rippers’ Appeal of RIAA’s $83 Million Piracy Win Moves Forward

First off today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that Tofig Kurbanov, the Russian operator of a pair of YouTube ripping websites, has appealed an $83 million judgment against him that he says was made without the record labels proving any infringement actually took place.

The lawsuit was filed by the RIAA against Kurbanov, over allegations that he operated two sites meant for ripping audio and video content out of YouTube videos. However, initially, Krubanov did not participate in the case, resulting in the court issuing a default judgment against him. But, when the RIAA began to seek $83 million in damages, Kurbanov fought back, though he was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing it.

Shortly after the decision was released, Kurbanov announced his intention to appeal the damages. However, the case has just now been docketed by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. According to that appeal, the record labels failed to prove a single infringement, making the damages award inappropriate. The sites have both voluntarily blocked traffic from U.S.-based visitors, resulting in an over 90% drop in traffic to them.

2: Playing Bollywood Music at Weddings Not a Copyright Violation: Govt.

Next up today, Neha Madaan at The Times of India reports that, in India, the Union government has issued a directive that clarifies copyright issues around playing Bollywood musical songs at marriage ceremonies and related events.

The announcement came from the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), which said that playing music at weddings was covered under existing copyright rules around performing music at religious or official ceremonies. The DPIIT further added that rightsholders need cease attempting such royalty collections and that the public should be warned against complying with such demands.

The move came after multiple stakeholders complained to the DPIIT over the issue, with several venues claiming to have been targeted by legal harassment over their playing of music at such events.

3: Meta Releases Anti-piracy Tools for Quest Devs, Including Hardware-based App Bans & More

Finally today, Scott Hayden at Road to VR reports that Meta has announced a new series of anti-piracy measures for their Quest VR headsets that it says will protect apps on it from “unauthorized modifications and potential security breaches.”

The new system is called the Platform Integrity Attestation API, which enables developers to tell if their server is interacting with an untampered VR device.

While the move is at least partially aimed at preventing piracy of software on the platform, there is concern that it could harm the modding community that has grown around many games such as Beat Saber. Right now, the new API is opt-in only, and it covers apps released on the Quest 2, Quest Pro and the upcoming Quest 3.

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