3 Count: Office Depot Data

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1: Office Depot Eyes $2 Million in Attorney Fees After Beating Copyright Claim

First off today, David Thomas at Reuters reports that Office Depot is seeking $2 million attorneys’ fees and other costs after defeating a lawsuit filed by a data analysis company.

The lawsuit was filed by Infogroup in 2020, who alleged that Office Depot committed copyright infringement by misusing data that they provided the company. However, the judge dismissed the case in June, saying that the license between Office Depot and Infogroup did not restrict how Office Depot could use the data.

As a result of that dismissal, Office Depot is asking for $2 million in attorneys’ fees, saying that the lawsuit was meritless and that the figure is a representative of the costs they have faced fighting it. Infogroup, now renamed Data Axle, has said that they will oppose the motion for fees.

2: Photo Agency Demands Photographer Pays $12K to Use His Own Photos

Next up today, Matt Growcoot at PetaPixel reports that China-based photographer Jeff Dai claims that a local photo agency is demanding that he pay some $12,000 for the use of his own photos.

According to Dai, he received a call from Visual China Group (VCG), demanding a “usage fee” for some 173 photos he took. However, according to Dai, he has no history with VCG and, even though he does license his work through Getty and VCG is the exclusive distributor for Getty in China, VCG does not have the rights to the images in question.

The call is the latest in what is seen as an “overzealous” copyright campaign by VCG, who has repeatedly targeted small and large businesses alike for alleged infringement. This included angering the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, which called the organization a “malignant tumor” during an earlier dispute.

3: DragonForce Had to Fight Hard to Keep Their Song After Random YouTuber Claims Ownership of It

Finally today, Joe DiVita at Loudwire reports that the band DragonForce faced an unusual copyright battle as an unknown YouTube user claimed copyright ownership of their song 2003 Valley of the Damned.

According to a post on X (Twitter) by the band, an unknown person had claimed the song and filed a copyright claim with YouTube on it. That resulted not only the song being taken down, but their channel becoming restricted. However, despite multiple attempts to work with YouTube to resolve the issues, several days passed without any action.

Eventually, YouTube did address the issue and acknowledged that the original takedown was “invalid”. They restored the video and removed the strike from the YouTube channel.

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