3 Count: Unsuccessful Kid

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1: US Supreme Court Rejects Ex-Lawmaker Steve King’s Appeal in ‘Success Kid’ Copyright Case

First, today, Blake Brittain at Reuters reports that the Supreme Court has declined to hear a case involving former United States Representative Steve King and the creators of the “Success Kid” meme.

The meme was created in 2007 when Laney Griner photographed her son Sammy Griner clutching a fistful of sand at the beach. That image became the “Success Kid” meme and enjoyed widespread popularity online.

In 2020, King ran for reelection and used the meme in his campaign. This prompted Griner to sue, alleging copyright infringement. The jury sided with Griner but only awarded her $750 in damages, the statutory minimum. However, King appealed the case to the 8th Circuit, which upheld the verdict last year. Now, the Supreme Court has declined to hear the case, letting the lower court’s ruling stand.

2: Authors Seek Meta’s Torrent Client Logs and Seeding Data in AI Piracy Probe

Next up today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that a group of authors are asking Meta, the owners of Facebook and Instagram, to submit their BitTorrent logs to show whether they illegally downloaded pirated ebooks.

The authors sued Meta, alleging that their work was illegally used to train AI models created by the company. However, Meta recently acknowledged using pirated books from the LibGen collection in its training.

Because of that, the authors seek to expand their discovery to include BitTorrent downloads. Part of the goal was to see if Meta didn’t just download files but also distributed them. The court has agreed with the probe, allowing it to move forward.

3: APG Sues Create Music Group for Alleged ‘Massive Willful Copyright Infringement’

Finally today, Daniel Tencer at Music Business Worldwide reports that the music company APG has filed a lawsuit against Create Music Group, alleging copyright infringement on YouTube.

According to APG, Create Music Group has claimed the rights to various YouTube videos owned or licensed by APG. They allege that Create Music Group “actively” searches for music on YouTube for which no claim has been filed. It then falsely files a claim with YouTube and uploads it to other streaming services, including Spotify and Apple Music. APG also alleges that it would encourage artists to sign “bogus” contracts to justify this behavior.

Create denies any infringement and says that this is a case of a legacy company targeting a tech-savvy upstart. They denied wrongdoing and said the lawsuit is simply “legal theatrics.”

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

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