3 Count: Nitter Picking

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1: Nitter No More? X Sends in the Lawyers to Shut Down Open Source Project

First off today, Richard Speed at The Register reports that X (formerly Twitter) has sent a legal notice to Nitter and the related service XCancel, causing both services to shut down “until further notice.”

Nitter provided a way for users to access X content without the need for a Twitter account. Users could access X content without ads and without tracking. The project was first shuttered in January 2024 following API changes by X. However, the site found a way to restore functionality a year later.

However, the latest legal threat has taken the site offline again, at least for now. It represents the latest round of companies like X battling both AI and non-AI data scraping.

2: Copying? Definitely. Infringement? Maybe.

Next up today, Aaron Moss at Copyright Lately reports that music photographer Juston Thomas has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the artist Elizabeth Peyton over a photograph of the Oasis brothers that Peyton turned into a painting.

In 1995, Thomas captured a photo of Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis sharing a playful kiss on the cheek. A year later, Peyton turned that photo into a painting that is now up for auction and is expected to fetch between $1.5 million and $2 million.

Thomas alleges that he was not aware of the painting until he was contacted by a representative from the auction house. In an interesting twist, the case has been assigned to the same district judge who presided over the Goldsmith/Warhol case. The judge granted summary judgment in favor of the Warhol Foundation over paintings based on Goldsmith’s photographs, but that decision was overturned by the Supreme Court.

3: FlavaWorks Targets 75 Members of Gay-Torrents Tracker With RICO Lawsuit

Finally today, Ernesto Van der Sar at TorrentFreak writes that the adult entertainment company FlavaWorks has a new complaint arguing Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) violations against 75 members of the Gay-Torrents tracker.

FlavaWorks has become infamous for its strong handed legal action against alleged copyright infringers. Earlier this year, it targeted the site Gay-Torrents, alleging that the company had enabled massive infringement of its content. The site quickly shut down in response to the lawsuit, but the company continued.

Now FlavaWorks has expanded that case, adding some 74 John Doe defendants, claiming that they are not just infringing its copyright, but also participating in a RICO conspiracy. Among other things, the move may be a bid to streamline process service in the case as a RICO lawsuit requires just one “anchor defendant” to be served.

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