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TechDirt

The long saga of the BMG v. Cox case is now over. If you don’t recall, BMG had hired the copyright trolling outfit Rightscorp to bombard ISPs with shakedown letters, based on accusations of copyright infringement. Rightscorp really wanted ISPs to pass those letters on to ISP subscribers, including the part where they demand money to leave you alone. As was revealed during the case, Rightscorp would blatantly lie to those subscribers, telling them that if they were innocent they needed to first hand their computers over the police for a forensic search. Cox, after being bombarded with these shakedown letters, started ignoring the Rightscorp letters, leading BMG to sue.

Cox pointed to the DMCA safe harbors to protect itself, but the judge, Liam O’Grady, made it pretty clear that he didn’t care much for the internet at all, and didn’t seem to mind Righscorp and BMG shaking down people for money with the threat of losing their entire internet access. Of course, it did not help at all that Cox itself had some damning emails about how they treated subscribers accused of infringement. While plenty of attention has been placed on Cox’s apparent “thirteen strikes” policy for those accused (not convicted) of copyright infringement, the real problem came down to the fact that Cox didn’t follow its own repeat infringer policy. So, in the end, Cox lost to BMG in the lower court and it was mostly upheld on appeal.

However, the case was sent back down to the lower court because O’Grady messed up with his jury instructions, providing them with the wrong standard for contributory infringement (O’Grady’s jury instructions about contributory infringement presented it as a much broader standard than it actually was). And thus, the case was supposed to go back for another trial… but that’s now over as the two sides have settled and Judge O’Grady immediately signed off on the settlement.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180824/12282440502/recognizing-it-had-no-chance-cox-settles-bmg-copyright-trolling-case.shtml Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

IP WatchDog

Steve Brachmann
August 17, 2018

Nintendo’s complaint targets the operator of LoveROMS.com and LoveRETRO.co who has made thousands of Nintendo titles available online for free from platforms including the Game Boy, the original Nintendo Entertainment System, Super NES, Nintendo 64 and Nintendo DS, among others. Nintendo alleges that just the top 10 games on the LoveROMs site in which Nintendo is a copyright claimant and trademark owner have been downloaded more than 60 million times. Further, the LoveROMs website allegedly receives more than 17 million visits each month.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/08/17/nintendo-files-copyright-trademark-infringement-suit-against-operator-rom-websites/id=100283/ Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

IP Watchdog

Steve Brachmann
August 18, 2018

A collection of trade organizations representing music publishers and songwriters recently released a joint statement in which all announced unconditional support for S.2823, the Music Modernization Act (MMA). These organizations include SESAC, the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and the Songwriters of North America (SONA). The support of the bill from these collective entities comes after an amendment to the act designed to improve private competition in the market for music licensing after a contentious period of negotiating that amendment.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/08/18/compromise-music-modernization-act-music-industry-support/id=100162/ Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Tech Dirt

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Aug 13th 2018

Just recently, Tim Geigner wrote about how Nintendo’s success with the relaunched Nintendo NES Classic showed how the company successfully competed with free, because there are plenty of NES emulators that can play ROMs for free. And yet, the NES Classic comes in a neat, easy to use package. And it’s worth buying if only because it looks cool — just like the original, but… tiny. I should know: I have one and it’s great. And my wife can’t stop playing Mario Bros. on it, though she keeps complaining about other games from her youth that are missing.

But, of course, this is Nintendo we’re talking about, so it’s been busy, busy, busy suing a bunch of ROM sites and scaring others into shutting down. The site EmuParadise shut down recently with the following as part of its farewell message after 18 years in operation:

IP Watchdog

Katie Scholz
August 15, 2018

While registration is required in order to file a lawsuit for copyright in federal court, there is currently a circuit split with regard to what part of the process must be complete in order to meet the “registration” standard.  According to 17 U.S.C. §411(b), “no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made.”  The question that circuit courts seem to be divided on is whether “registration” is satisfied when a Copyright Registration is received, or when an application has been filed. On June 28, 2018, the Supreme Court agreed to weigh in. The case at issue is Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, which arises out of the Eleventh Circuit.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/08/15/litigating-copyrights-is-registration-required/id=100130/ Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Lex Blog

AUGUST 15, 2018

In our continued post-TC Heartland coverage, Judge Gilstrap in the Eastern District of Texas recently held that venue was proper because Google exercises exclusive control over physical servers implicated by the litigation, as well as the physical space within which the server is located and maintained. The court emphasized that the place where the server is located occupies a physical space, which is more than merely a virtual space or electronic communications from one person…

Lex Blog

DAVINIA BRENNAN

AUGUST 16, 2018

[ed notes: EU rules and actions; international]

The CJEU has ruled that an unauthorised reposting of a photograph on a website, which is already publicly accessible without restriction on another website, can infringe the copyright rights of a photographer (Renckhoff, C-161/17). It is of little importance if, as in the present case, the copyright holder does not limit the ways in which the photograph may be used by internet users.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.lexblog.com/2018/08/16/cjeu-rules-reposting-photograph-internet-freely-accessible-another-website-requires-reauthorisation-author/ Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

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Tech Dirt

Timothy Geigner

Fri, May 11th 2018

With copyright trolling a business model in full force across the world, we’ve noted that there has finally started to be some pushback against these tactics. In Europe, both courts and ISPs have begun wising up to the notion that IP addresses are an incomplete and faulty piece of “evidence” at best, with both government and industry also finally beginning to question just where user privacy should fit into all of this. In America, unfortunately, copyright trolls have all too often been able to unmask customers through ISPs based on court orders pretty much at will. Strike 3 Holdings is one such troll, with the company being partially responsible for a number of piracy lawsuits shooting out of the gate in 2018 at record speed.

And, yet, it appears that there might finally be some pushback coming to the US too, as two judges in Minnesota have now refused to order ISPs to give up customer information to Strike 3.

Late last month, Magistrate Judge Franklin Noel denied such a discovery motion.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180508/06010439798/minnesota-judges-refuse-to-unmask-defendants-copyright-troll-strike-3.shtml Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Broadcast Law Blog

David Oxenford

May 22, 2018

While Copyright Royalty Board decisions on royalties for webcasters, Sirius XM and mechanical royalties get most of the attention, the CRB also sets rates paid by “business establishment services” for the “ephemeral copies” made in their music businesses. Business establishment services are the companies that provide music to businesses to play in retail stores, restaurants and other commercial establishments. These services have come a long way from the elevator music that once was so derided – and now set the mood in all sorts of businesses with formats as varied as the commercial businesses themselves.  While the rates paid by these services pay for music rights is a little off-topic for this blog, these rates are a bit unusual, so they are worth mentioning.  The Copyright Royalty Board just announced a proposed settlement between the services that were participating in the CRB case and SoundExchange which will raise the rates gradually from the current 12.5% of revenue to 13.5% over the next 5 years, with a minimum annual fee of $20,000, up from $10,000. These rates, which apply to any company that does not negotiate direct royalties with the sound recording copyright holders, go into effect in 2019 and will be in place through 2023. Comments on these proposed rates are due June 18, though CRB rules limit the consideration of comments from those who were not participants in the proceeding.more

The content in this post was found at https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2018/05/articles/copyright-royalty-board-announces-proposed-new-soundexchange-royalties-for-business-establishment-services/ Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Tech Dirt

Mike Masnick

Tue, May 22nd 2018

Lawyer Stephen Doniger seems to be going out of his way to file lawsuits that involve creative interpretations of copyright (and by “creative” I mean “wrong.”) You may recall that Doniger was the lawyer behind Playboy suing Boing Boing for copyright infringement for linking to an Imgur collection of Playboy centerfolds. That case went so poorly that the judge tossed it out in just two months. Before that, Doniger made a name for himself (I kid you not) being a fabric copyright troll, filing loads of lawsuits against companies offering similar designs on fabric. He’s also jumped in on the whole situation created by the “Blurred Lines” mess by filing a bunch of “sounds alike” copyright cases.

It’s almost as if he’s filing all sorts of nutty copyright cases just to demonstrate for us just how ridiculous modern copyright law has become, and how far from its purpose it has strayed. Indeed, that’s about the only explanation I can find for a new filing by Doniger, as noted by the Hollywood Reporter, in which Doniger, representing director Robin Bain is suing actress Jessica Haid for using a clip of the film, Nowhereland in her own demo reel.

In short, Bain claims that Haid asked for permission to use clips in her demo reel and Bain refused (nice of him).