3 Count: Pirate Advertising

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

1: Google Sued by Top Textbook Publishers Over Ads for Pirated E-Books

First, today, Blake Brittain at Reuters reports that a group of education publishers have filed a lawsuit against Google. They say the company promotes pirated e-book versions by selling advertising space to sites that sell illegal copies.

According to the lawsuit, Google not only accepts and promotes ads for pirate sellers but has routinely denied ads from legitimate publishers, giving pirate sites the top spots in search results.

The publishers claim they have been raising this issue with Google since 2021, but the company has refused to remove pirate advertisements. As such, they are suing the company, claiming copyright and trademark infringement.

2: Seneca County News Website Sued, Accused of Copyright Infringement

Next up today, Bennett Loudon at The Daily Record reports that a photography studio based in Seneca Falls, New York, has filed a lawsuit against Fingerlakes1.com, a local news website, over alleged copyright infringement of their images.

According to the lawsuit, the site used 11 photos of baseball players owned by the studio Corey Sipkin Photography LLC. The lawsuit alleges that despite having a staff familiar with copyright, the studio has not implemented internal policies to verify copyright ownership or licensing before publication.

The lawsuit alleges that the site gained financial benefit through advertising. It also claims the studio contacted the site about the infringement in September 2022. However, the infringement continued even after that notice, prompting the lawsuit.

3: YouTube Processed a Billion Content ID Copyright Claims in Six Months

Finally today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that, in YouTube’s latest transparency report, the company handled 99.3% of all copyright issues using its Content ID system, despite only being used by some 4,500 users.

Content ID was used over one billion times in the first six months of this year. Despite having relatively few viers compared to the web form and Copyright Match tool, each comprised less than 0.25% of all copyright cases. Its Enterprise web form only did slightly more, with 0.33% of all cases.

Though most Content ID claims are not challenged, the number of challenges rose from 0.40% to 0.42%. Web form takedown notices, for example, were challenged 7.5% of the time, compared to 5.9% during the previous year.

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