It is Friday again and that means that it is time for another episode of the Copyright 2.0 Show.

It was an insane week for copyright news with one story dominating the headlines like no other, the new DRM circumvention exemptions. But while everyone was getting excited about jailbreaking their iPhones, other headlines were slipping under the radar including other, likely more important exemptions to the DRM circumvention law as well as several major updates to ongoing cases.

This week’s stories include:

• U.S. Copyright Office Announces DMCA Exemptions
• UFC Hits Back Against Illegal Streams
• Mass Bittorrent Lawsuits Target Private Trackers
• Authors Bypass publishers to Go Digital
• Bratz Dolls Back to Legal Limbo
• WordPress/Thesis Make Up

You can download the MP3 file here (direct download). Those interested in subscribing to the show can do so via this feed.

Show Notes

About the Hosts

Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey (@plagiarismtoday) is the Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today (Hint: You’re there now) and works as a copyright and plagiarism consultant. Though not an attorney, he has resolved over 700 cases of plagiarism involving his own work and has helped countless others protect their work and develop strategies for making their content work as hard as possible toward their goals.

Patrick O’Keefe

Patrick O’Keefe (@iFroggy) is the owner of the iFroggy Network, a network of websites covering various interests. He’s the author of the book “Managing Online Forums,” a practical guide to managing online communities and social spaces. He maintains a blog about online community management at ManagingCommunities.com and a personal blog at patrickokeefe.com.

Have a copyright question? Need some advice? Visit CopyByte.com for information on how we can help you.


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jonb1324cdr

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

1: Upload Limit Increases to 15 Minutes For All Users

First off today, YouTube has increased the upload limit on videos to 15 minutes, up from the previous limit of 10. YouTube, however, attributes the change to its content ID system, which copyright holders use to monitor and enforce their work on the service. This, according to YouTube, has limited the site’s usefulness for infringement, making it possible to raise the limit, which was largely in place to limit infringing uses of the site’s services.

2: U.S. Copyright Group ‘Steal’ Competitor’s Website

Next up today, mass litigator the U.S. Copyright Group has been accused of “stealing” a competitor’s website. The company, best known for filing thousands of infringement lawsuits over independent films, reused images and code from copyrightsettlements.com. The latter company has confirmed they are not affiliated with the USCG and that they plan to file a cease and desist letter. Originally the two sites were almost identical but even a new, stripped-down version of the USCG’s site still reuses some of the code.

3: Attorneys for J.K. Rowling Request Dismissal in Copyright Suit

Finally today, attorneys for J.K. Rowling have responded to the “Willie the Wizard” lawsuit, which alleges much of Rowling’s book “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” is based on the book created by the late Adrian Jacobs. Rowling has asked the court to dismiss the suit saying that there is no evidence to show that she copied from Jacobs’ book and the pleading also took a few potshots at the work saying that the book was “very, very badly written.”

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 6 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

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

Have a copyright question? Need some advice? Visit CopyByte.com for information on how we can help you.


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jonb1324cdr

Repeat copyright litigator and pornography company Perfect 10 has had yet another verdict go against it, this one in its ongoing battle with Google over what Perfect 10 alleges is images infringing on their copyright present in Google’s index.

According to Perfect 10, Google has not done enough to remove such infringing images from their index and has not responded appropriately to DMCA takedown notices. The court, however, has largely disagreed.

The court tossed out most of Perfect 10 claims saying that they did not provide adequate notice for Google nor did they meet the minimum standards underneath the law. In short, their DMCA notices were not adequate and Google can not be held liable for not taking action on them.

A small subset of Perfect 10′s notices were deemed to be valid and Google now must show that it responded expeditiously to remove the infringing material or potentially face liability.

It has already been a case that all DMCA filers need to watch closely and this recent verdict only reaffirms that. Fortunately, the lessons from this ruling are very simple to understand.

Lessons For DMCA Filers

The basic lesson from this ruling is very straightforward, don’t file sloppy DMCA notices. You, as the copyright holder, can not place the burden on the host or the search engine to do the research on your claim nor can you you simply dump a collection of links and source items on the host’s doorstep for them to sort through and figure it out.

Perfect 10 filed at least some of its notices by including a cover letter and a spreadsheet of URLs. Often times the URLs did not link to the infringing material and the source content was not clearly identified or was one of thousands of images on a DVD.

Essentially, the court ruled that a proper DMCA notice needs to include all the required information in a single written communication and could not force any undue burden on the host. This seems reasonable enough, but Perfect 10 did not do that with the majority of its notices.

However, in a regard, this recent Perfect 10 ruling is a victory for DMCA filers as the court upheld properly filed notices and may still find Google liable in those cases depending on what action Google took. However, it is more importantly a word of caution that, when filing DMCA notices, you need to make sure that they are sent in the proper format or they can be legally ignored.

What It Means For You

If you use the stock letters provided here and the system I preach, it means pretty much nothing.

In fact, the steps required by the court, making the information clear, providing all the data in one communication, etc. are all good practices regardless. If one is interested in seeing the DMCA notice executed in a timely manner, these are the steps one should take anyway.

I’ve never had a DMCA notice rejected as being incomplete using the current template and don’t see any reason I would following this ruling.

This ruling should serve as a warning to those who might play games with DMCA notices in a bid to “trap” hosts into non-compliance, but to those who are filing notices in good faith and working to make things as efficient as possible for all parties, they have nothing to fear.

Bottom Line

Clearly, the Perfect 10 case is ongoing and we will see the outcome on the remaining notices. But with the majority of the works now tossed out, it is clear that Perfect 10 will never see the full outcome it wants.

But while that may concern some DMCA filers, the truth is that Perfect 10′s method of filing notices was so out of the norm for how the process is supposed to work that the court found it to be invalid.

In short, even if you don’t do things exactly like me, you’ll probably find that you’ll be on the right side of the law so long as you work to make things as simple and clear as possible for the company you are filing with and don’t try to reinvent the wheel.

Have a copyright question? Need some advice? Visit CopyByte.com for information on how we can help you.


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

1: If Purported Ansel Adams Photos Earn Big Money, Their Discoverer May Not Get to Keep It

First off today, a wall painter who claims to have discovered glass plate negatives of famous photographer Ansel Adams’ unpublished work may not get to keep the revenue from the prints he has sold. The reason is that, since the works were unpublished, they may still be protected by copyright and Adams’ heirs, if they agree that they are indeed his photographs, may be able to claim the money. Currently Adams’ estate says that the evidence offered up by the wall painter who claims to have discovered the negatives isn’t sufficient and disputes their authenticity.

2: Troy Classifieds Business Awarded $6 Million in Copyright Case

Next up today Want Ad Digest, an advertising company specializing in classified ads, won a $6 million judgment against local magazine Classified Advertiser. According to the plaintiffs, the magazine copied many of the company’s ads but initially had much of its claim thrown out, saying that design and layout of the ads was not infringing. However, according to Want Ad Digest, the company had used text from some 8,000 ads and the jury agreed. Collecting on this judgment may prove impossible as the Advertiser is now out of business, largely due to the expense of this trial.

3: ‘Fela!’ Producers Sued Over Image in Show

Finally today, photographer Marilyn Nance is suing the producers of the of the Broadway musical Fela! claiming that a photograph projected during part of the performance is an infringement of her work. According to Nance, she took the photograph of the Nigerian nightclub of musician Fela Kuti which was used for the performance and is seeking some $150,000 in damages. That may prove difficult as, by her attorney’s admission, Nance only registered the work after discovering the infringement, eliminating the opportunity to collect statutory damages.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 6 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

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

Have a copyright question? Need some advice? Visit CopyByte.com for information on how we can help you.


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One of the most difficult things about protecting your content on the Web is finding ways to encourage legitimate sharing of content without encouraging less desired use. We almost all want people to Tweet, link to and quote our content but we don’t want to encourage spammers and we always want to make sure that proper attribution is applied.

There have been a slew of services that have worked to make exactly that possible. Ranging from licensing solutions such as Creative Commons to technology-oriented ones such as Emebed Article and Tynt Insight (formerly known as Tracer).

However, there is another service, Clp.ly, which hopes to make a dent in the field.

Clp.ly is both a bookmarklet and a button/JavaScript embedded into websites that make embedding content (or “clipping” content) extremely easy and elegant.

The idea is to make it simple and attractive to correctly cite content from various sites, including both pulling quotes and snapping images. This raises the simple question “How well does it work?” The answer, overall, seems to be that it does the job very well.

The Bookmarklet

The most common way one would likely use Clp.ly is via a bookmarklet installed in the browser. The bookmarklet can be used one of two ways.

First, if you select text on the screen and then click the bookmarklet, you are given the option to embed just that text. The quote can either be shared directly via a link on clp.ly’s server or it can be easily embedded into a blog post or any page with HTML. Here is an example taken from this page.

In April, @BadAstronomer, Phil Plait, moderated a panel

From Geeky Pleasures (share this quote)

All in all, the embed has three elements, the first is the quote itself, which is framed with large quotemarks and formatted to stand out, the second is a direct link to the source page (albeit masked by a short url provided by Clp.ly) and finally a link to share the quote via Twitter, Facebook and other services.

The other method for using the bookmarklet is to simply click the link without selecting text and Clp.ly will instead direct you to a page that will allow you to embed a formatted screenshot of the page via a screen like this:

Basically, the tool lets you select the relevant part of the page by moving the slider up and down the left-hand column and resize the image you want to make using the box in the center. From there you’re given an embed code for your site and a direct URL for the clip.

Here is what a sample image embed looks like, once again using the site above.

Clipped from: Geeky Pleasures (share this clip)

As you can see, it is a fairly powerful clipping bookmarklet and, if you register for an account, you’ll get the added feature of having your clips stored and remembered in your profile. This can make it somewhat useful as a research and bookmarking tool though, admittedly, Diigo is probably a better choice for that function.

But as nice as the bookmarklet is, it is only half of the equation. Clp.ly also offers an easy way to embed the service into your site, making it available for everyone.

Clp.ly for Webmasters

If you register for an account, you can also add your Web sites to the service and that will let you embed Clp.ly’s functionality into your site for all to use, whether or not the user has the bookmarklet installed.

The button works much the same as the bookmarklet, having the same functions on click, but the JavaScript that powers it adds a new feature, copy detection.

When a user selects and copies text on your site, they are greeted with a small popup similar to the one above.

Though the content is copied as is to the clipboard, the user is prompted to either format the content for embedding or take a screen capture if they want. Compare this to Tynt which, when it adds attribution to copied text, does so stealthily and without warning to the user.

This turns the attribution protection into more of a value-add for the person doing the copying as the formatted version is more attractive than plain text.

One feature I could not get to work in my testing is that the system is also supposed to warn visitors when they are attempting to copy too much text. If a user copies more than 100 words, they are supposed to get a fair use warning with a link to the Wikipedia article on the subject (though I would recommend this link instead). Likewise, if they copy a very small amount, they’re given a chance to search for the term.

To those who were uneasy about the way Tynt stealthily added the attribution line to content protected by it, Clp.ly will likely seem like a good compromise, pasting the content to the clipboard as is but offering the user the chance to have it preformatted for inclusion.

Drawbacks and Limitations

To be clear, Clp.ly is not a perfect solution and it does lack features that other services offer. For example, the service can not share images in the way that Embed Anything can nor does it offer the robust tracking of Tynt (though it does monitor “trackbacks” that pass through the service).

Also, during my use of the service I ran into a few bugs. For one, I received none of the emails I should have gotten from Clp.ly and instead received warnings the messages could not be sent. This made password recovery impossible after I lost my temporary password for my first account.

Likewise, some of the links to various clip did not work well for me, taking me instead to my clips when I was logged in.

However, for the most part, Clp.ly is a solid and effective service. It may not have all the features one could want but likely has the features that one needs and strikes a good balance between forcing attribution down a user’s throat and simply hoping for the best.

In short, it is not an ideal solution but for many interested in this type of protection it may be the best available.

Bottom Line

There’s a lot of features I’d like to see out of Clp.ly including more robust stats, direct links to source material (no Clp.ly short url when not needed) and an invisible button (meaning it is only activated on the copying of text) but the service is still very powerful and works very well.

Though I don’t think it’s going to sway large media companies who use Tynt at this time, largely due to the small nature of the company and the lack of invisible tracking, it shows a great deal of potential and may be perfect for small-to-midsize bloggers and webmasters who want to do a little bit more to encourage good copying of their text.

So if you are interested in this kind of functionality, give Clp.ly a look, you may find it to be perfect for you.

If you are curious to see how it works, I’ve enabled it on this article so feel free to play around with it for a bit.

No trackbacks yet

Have a copyright question? Need some advice? Visit CopyByte.com for information on how we can help you.


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

1: Jail-Breaking Law Change Will Have Limited Impact: Analysts, Companies

First off today, analysts are concurring with my opinion that the new exemptions to the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions will have little practical impact, especially in terms of jailbreaking. Not only has jailbreaking been occurring without retribution by Apple before the new exemptions were handed down, but other protections, such as terms of services signed at the time of signup and invalidated warranties still protect the iPhone (and other handsets) from being jailbroken. In short, most of those who want to do it have done it and those who don’t likely won’t be swayed by the new rules.

2: R-J Mob Source Hit With Copyright Suit

Next up today, mob enforcer turned government witness Anthony Fiato is the latest person to be sued by Righthaven on behalf of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Fiato had used several articles about the mafia from the Review-Journal on his blog, which is hosted at wordpress.com. Fiato is in the witness protection program and Righthaven is seeking some $75,000 in statutory damages from him. Fiato, for his part, feels that the suit was a “mistake”.

3: Publisher Fined Record $250M in Copyright Case

Finally today, a court in Russia has handed down the largest copyright award in the nation’s history, some 7.6 billion rubles in damages or about $250 million. The judgment was filed against the publishing company Astrel, owned by its parent company AST, which the court found had illegally published copies of science fiction author Alexander Belyayev’s books and calculated the damages by multiplying the copies of his books AST sold by the cost of a luxury set of books sold in Italy. The amount of damages is approximately equal to AST’s annual turnover making it unclear if and how AST/Astrel will be able to pay.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 6 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

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

Have a copyright question? Need some advice? Visit CopyByte.com for information on how we can help you.


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Back in 2007, photographer Lara Jade Coton discovered that a self-portrait she took was being used as the cover of a pornographic DVD being sold by TVX Films. Coton, who was 17 when the photo was taken, sued TVX Films and others involved in the DVD.

Well, three years later, Coton finally got her day in court.

However, it was probably a bit of a disappointment.

The case has been fraught with delays and false starts over the years. These issues were largely caused by the defendants, which have now been found to be in default due to failures to appear and file motions in a timely manner. As a result of this, the trial, which was held last week, was on the issue of damages alone after a default judgement had been entered against TVX Films and its owner Robert Burge.

However, no one for the defendants showed up for the trial. Instead, Coton’s attorney, Richard Harrison pleaded his case for damages including admitting nearly 50 items into evidence and having Coton testify on the stand. According to Harrison, they are seeking damages for copyright infringement, statutory and common law misappropriation of her likeness for commercial purposes, defamation by implication (also called “false light” defamation) and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

All of the other defendants in the case other than Burge and TVX films were dismissed from the case. This includes Cyber Services LLC and Tricon Interactive Inc. which were dismissed voluntarily the same day of the trial.

What’s next for the case is that the judge gave Coton 15 days from the trial, to file a memorandum on the damages issue, which Harrison has said they will file, and a ruling on damages is expected shortly after that.

While the case is clearly far from over, especially if either Burge or TVX decides to appeal any judgment against them, it should be a relief to many artists and photographers that Coton got her day in court and that the issue at hand was how much, if any, damages should be awarded.

However, the way Burge and TVX have battled this case, ending up in default, won’t exactly be satisfying to those who wanted to see an in-depth review of the legal issues. Still it has proven that artists can take on these cases and, though it is early to call it a victory, it is clear that the courts do take these issues seriously and respond appropriately.

I’ve embedded the (admittedly brief) clerk’s minutes from the trial below. I will post another update once a ruling on damages has been entered and we know whether TVX and Burge plan on appealing the case.

In the meantime, I think artists and photographers who were watching this case should breathe a sigh of releif that the case has made it to this point and seems to be steaming its way to a very positive resolution.

Lara Jade Bench Trial

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

1: Never Mind Legality, iPhone Jailbreaking Voids Your Warranty

First off today, Apple has responded to yesterday’s news that the U.S. Copyright Office granted an exemption for “jailbreaking” mobile phones, making the act legal. They said that, while the law may allow jailbreaking, it will still void your warranty. This means that anyone seeking free repairs on a jailbroken iPhone will be out of luck. Apple says that they do this in an attempt to provide customers the best experience possible.

2: Net Neutrality Debate Veers Off on Copyright Tangent

Next up today, the net neutrality debate has taken another turn. As the FCC struggles to find a way to regulate ISPs and prevent them from showing preference to some data over others, copyright groups, such as Arts+Labs, are wanting to make sure that any such regulations do not interfere with the ISPs abillity to blog infringing transfers. Though this position is nothing new, it comes at a critical juncture after the FCC began work to reclassify ISPs as phone companies to better regulate them.

3: Media’s Analogue Holdouts: Digitisation and its Discontents

Finally today, the Economist has an interesting article about digital holdouts, including such major media brands as The Beatles, Harry Potter and several women’s magazines. The reason cited is many brands have nothing to gain from being online as they are either already ubiquitous or dependent upon revenue from physical sales for their business model. However, many readily admit that while such strategies make sense, they are rarely the best method for reducing piracy.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 6 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

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

Have a copyright question? Need some advice? Visit CopyByte.com for information on how we can help you.


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jonb1324cdr

The copyright blogs and news sites are buzzing today about the recent new exemptions made into the anti-circumvention rules of the DMCA.

To recap, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (PDF) has a controversial provision that prohibits the breaking of digital locks, more commonly known as DRM, for almost any purpose. The U.S. Copyright Office, however, every three years, revisits the issue and grants exception where breaking these locks are allowed.

Such a process began earlier this year and the rules were just handed down today. Specifically, the USCO designated six different classes of works where DRM circumvention is now acceptable.

The are as follows:

1. DVD Circumvention: The new law allows users to circumvent the DRM on DVDs, specifically the Content Scrambling System, often known as CSS, in order to obtain short clips of the film for education use, documentary filmmaking and non-commercial clips.
2. Jailbreaking to Install Applications: The new rules allow the “jailbreaking” of “wireless telephone handsets” to download and run unauthorized apps that are legally obtained. A good example is jailbreaking an iPhone to install apps not available in the App Store.
3. Jailbreaking to Change Mobile Carriers: The new rules also allow for jailbreaking phones to switch them to a new carrier, for example, allowing iPhone customers to switch to Tmobile.
4. Security Testing/Flaw Correction in Video Games: Users can now break encryption and copy protection on installed video games for the purpose of investigating and correcting security issues.
5. Computer Programs Protected by Dongles: If a legally-owned computer program is protected by a dongle (USB key or other hardware attachment) and the dongle is broken and can not be replaced.
6. Read-aloud Ebooks: Finally, if an ebook publisher has blocked access to the read-aloud functionality of an ebook reader and blocked access to screen readers, circumventing those locks is acceptable for the purpose of having such books read aloud. This most directly impacts the visually impaired.

So what does this mean for you? Probably not a great deal.

There’s a great deal of talk about the two jailbreaking exemptions and they are, almost certainly, the most important. If you want to move your iPhone to another carrier or install unauthorized apps, you can now do so legally.

However, practically speaking, not a lot has changed. Though Apple (and other phone manufacturers) had the right to file suit over jailbreaking, Apple hasn’t so even as an estimate 400,000 user used jailbreaking software on their iPhones. Instead, technological countermeasures, including OS updates, have been the primary tool and those will likely continue as nothing bars Apple from adding more measures to circumvent.

In short, though jailbreaking is legal, it is more of a symbolic than a practical change and it will still, in most cases, remain difficult and risky and there may still be legal issues revolving around the terms of the agreement signed when getting the phone..

Perhaps even more important, though less headline-grabbing, is the first exemption, which allows users to circumvent the CSS encryption on DVDs to gather short clips for non-commercial videos, documentaries and educational use.

But while this is a very powerful exemption, it is also very narrow. It is limited to a very small usage (short clips for various non-commercial uses), to one format of encryption (CSS) and one media type (DVDs). For example, Blu-Ray movies are not covered. Since the usage described would be, almost certainly, a fair use, the exemption merely legalizes a use of the content that would have been completely legal without DRM.

The remaining three are very narrow exemptions. The most interesting is the ebook one, which plays directly to the battle between the Author’s Guild and Amazon over the text-to-speech feature in the Kindle. Amazon eventually backed down, letting publishers decide whether to enable the feature on their books, but now this exemption would make it legal to circumvent that protection to make books readable.

The fourth item is the most specific, only allowing circumvention of video games on personal computers and only for security analysis and correction, no other reason. The fifth item, which deals with dongles, is also very specific and likely only impacts a small number of users.

It is important to note that these exemptions ONLY deal with the circumvention of DRM and not any actual copyright infringement. These protections often make it possible to be in violation of copyright law when doing something, without the DRM, would have been a fair use, such as with the first new exemption.

However, since most smaller content creators, including those reading this site, probably don’t use DRM in any capacity, the rules don’t affect them at all. But even Apple and the MPAA, who attempted to sway the USCO away from passing these exemptions during the hearings, probably had little to fear as they are extremely narrow.

In short, I think the USCO did a good job balancing the needs of consumers with the rights of creators and, if anything, may have made the exemptions too narrow in places.

I don’t think most content creators reading this will be impacted in any appreciable way, and the ones most directly affected would be those wanting to either jailbreak their phones or use clips from DVDs in videos. However, those groups have already largely partaken of their desired activities and few, if any, have faced any legal action over the circumvention.

Basically, it should be business as usual for most copyright holders, especially those who don’t rely on DRM.

Have a copyright question? Need some advice? Visit CopyByte.com for information on how we can help you.


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

1: UFC Fights Illegal Online Streaming Via Subpoenas Served to Justin.tv, Ustream.tv

First off today, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has filed a series of subpoenas with streaming services Ustream and Justin.tv to determine the IP addresses of those who streamed a recent UFC pay-per-view event illegally over the service. UFC president and spokesperson Dana White said that he “can’t wait” to go after those sharing the content illegally. This move comes after the UFC settled some 500 file sharing lawsuits.

2: Mass BitTorrent Lawsuits Now Target Private Trackers

Next up today, adult movie company Lucas Entertainment has filed a lawsuit in against 65 alleged file sharers in Texas Northern District Court. While that isn’t wholly unusual, what is different is that the lawsuit targets users of Gay-Torrents.net, a private bittorrent tracker with some 235,000 members. The lawsuit raises questions about the role of private trackers in these lawsuits and what, if any, evidence the tracker may be able to provide as they do maintain some logs of user data to track sharing ratios.

3: Celebrated authors bypass publishing houses to sell ebooks via Amazon

Finally today, many well-known authors, including Philip Roth to Orhan Pamuk, Martin Amis and John Updike are bypassing their publishers and, instead, publishing their own eBooks on the Amazon Kindle and similar services. The reason is that many of these authors signed contracts before eBooks were in existence and their deals with publishers don’t cover the new format. Because of this, they have banded together through a new company called Odyssey Editions to release the books online. Newer authors, however, routinely sign contracts that cover all electronic forms of publications, including eBooks, making their participation impossible.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 6 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

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

Have a copyright question? Need some advice? Visit CopyByte.com for information on how we can help you.


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jonb1324cdr