3 Count: The Home of Piracy

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1: Piracy and Copyright: A Court Upholds a DMCA Provision

First off today, Porter Anderson at Publishing Perspectives reports that the District of Columbia’s Court of Appeals has rejected a challenge to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anti-circumvention provisions, allowing the current rules to remain in effect.

The DMCA anti-circumvention rules make it unlawful to circumvent copyright management tools, such as digital rights management (DRM) software. However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said this was a violation of free expression.

However, the appeals court disagreed, saying that free expression is separate from circumvention. As such, circumvention is not a protected activity. Opposing the EFF was the Department of Justice. They were backed by an amicus brief that was signed by members of software, film, music and news organizations.

2: AI Firms Blast Lawsuit From Music Giants: ‘Labels See a Threat to Their Market Share’

Next up today, Bill Donahue at Billboard reports that Suno and Udio have filed a response to a lawsuit filed by the major record labels alleging copyright infringement of their music.

Universal, Warner and Sony, the three major record labels, filed the lawsuit. They accused Suno and Udio of unlawfully using their music to train their AI systems. In their response, the AI companies did not deny training their systems on proprietary music but said that it was a protected fair use.

They went on to claim that the record labels were trying to stifle competition. They further claimed that the lawsuit was an abuse of copyright and that the record labels were trying to control genres or styles of music.

3: Sports Leagues See ‘X’ as the ‘Home of Social Media Piracy’

Finally today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that a group of sports leagues have sent a letter to X (formerly Twitter) CEO Linda Yaccarino demanding that the platform take live-streaming piracy more seriously.

According to the letter, since Elon Musk purchased the platform, piracy has steadily increased, and staff and technical support for blocking it have been reduced. In particular, they focus on live-stream piracy, saying that X’s efforts fall short of competitors like Facebook and YouTube.

The letter claims that X is the “Home of social media piracy” and requests a meeting with the company to address these issues. However, that seems unlikely as Musk has long been a critic of copyright law, in particular the DMCA’s notice and takedown system.

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