3 Count: King of Contracts

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1: UMG Sues TuneCore Over Alleged ‘Massive’ Copyright Infringement of Rihanna, Ariana Grande & More Recordings

First, today, Kristin Robinson at Billboard reports that Universal Music Group (UMG), ABKCO and Concord have filed a lawsuit against the music distribution service TuneCore and its parent company, Believe.

TuneCore is a service that allows independent musicians to publish their work on various digital platforms. However, according to UMG, others regularly abuse the service to “publish” work belonging to other artists. They claim that TuneCore infringed some 219 of their sound recordings.

The lawsuit seeks some $500 million in damages. For their part, TuneCore has said it has taken steps to reduce abuse, including a collaborative effort with similar services.

2: Marcus King Enforces Strict Copyright Contract, Claiming Full Ownership Of Concert Photos

Next up today, Steve Ritchie at Metal Talk reports that musician Marcus King, through his touring company, has added a photography copyright clause to his contracts for those covering his shows.

According to the new contract, King will receive all rights to images taken of him during the show and will not even have to provide attribution if he reuses them. Photographers, on the other hand, can not sell or license the image without King’s approval.

King is the latest artist to push such contracts. Other recent examples include Elle King, Foo Fighters and Night Ranger.

3: Google Asked to Remove 10 Billion “Pirate” Search Results

Finally, today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that Google has crossed an unpleasant milestone, having processed its ten billionth URL targeted for removal on copyright grounds.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Google is obligated to remove allegedly infringing material from its search results after it receives a completed notice. As the most popular search engine, it receives the lion’s share of such reports. As part of that, it has maintained a transparency report that tracks how many notices have been submitted with the service and how many URLs were targeted.

That URL counter recently crossed 10 billion. The amount represents just over a decade of notices, which targeted 5.4 million domains and were filed by over 600,000 different copyright owners. However, the amount has been spiking in recent years. Google reached the 7 billion mark just last summer.

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