The CopyKat - copying you in to this week's copytastic news

R&B artist Jesse Braham has launched a $42m lawsuit against Taylor Swift saying that her hit "Shake It Off"  took the distinctive lyrics of her chorus from his slow jam "Haters Gone Hate", which appears on his album Sexy Ladies. Braham sings: “Haters gonna hate / Players gonna play / Watch out for them fakers / They’ll fake you every day.” Swift’s chorus runs: “’Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play / And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.” whilst there is no melodic similarities, Braham told the New York Daily News “Her hook is the same hook as mine" and “If I didn’t write the song "Haters Gone Hate", there wouldn’t be a song called "Shake It Off".” Reportedly Braham's initial claim was for a songwriting co-credit and a 'selfie' with Swift - but that has now somewhat escalated to the tune of $42 milllion. Braham, who runs a church organization called New Day Worldwide, said he also plans to file suit against CNN for the title of its morning show "New Day."

Ladouceur vs Macado (court records)

A Roanoke tattoo artist has brought a federal lawsuit against a local restaurant chain, claiming that an image used in recent promotions is the monster he created. The copyright infringement suit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, Virginia, by Roger Ladouceur against Macado’s Inc. The lawsuit alleges the restaurant chain, used a drawing by Ladouceur promoting its Halloween events over the past two years. Ladouceur said he produced and copyrighted the image in 2013 — a rendering of the face of Frankenstein’s monster wearing a monocle. 

The long running battle between the heirs of Superman co-creator Jerome (Jerry) Siegal and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and DC Comics Inc. over the rights for the acclaimed superhero is hading back to court. Most recently Siegal's daughter Laura Siegel Larson, sought to overturn a partial summary judgment in 2013 which held that the two companies had owned all of the rights to Superman since 2001. Siegal died in 1996. More here.

The Judge and the Jury

A request to our READERS. The CopyKat spied a brief article saying that an out of print 1978 Judge Dredd story - Burger Wars - was coming back because of the introduction of the exception for parody, pastiche and caricature in the United Kingdom. In the story it seems the big burger chains are locked in gang warfare, and legendary lawman is captured by burger barons and force fed burgers (never a great idea). It seems the original publishers of 2000AD, IPC, feared a backlash from the burger multinationals including McDonalds and Burger King - and the story satirised characters such as Ronald McDonald and the Michelin Man. It's said to be 'the first great Judge Dredd epic' but if anyone knows anything else about this - particularly in the context of copyright - please do feel free to comment.

Sleigh Bells

Brooklyn duo Sleigh Bells have accused Demi Lovato of sampling two of their songs without permission on her new song “Stars.” The songs in question — “Infinity Guitars” and “Riot Rhythm” — are both featured on the band's well-received 2010 debut Treats and include "distorted guitars, angular rhythms, and a danceable beat".  You can read more about this including interesting comment from Jeff Peretz, a professor at NYU's Clive Davis School of Music on Vulture.com here and you can compare Demi Lovato's Stars with Sleigh Bells' Infinity Guitar. Remember in this case it's sampling - not the tune! Professor Peretz feels confident that “Stars” uses a modified sample of “Infinity Guitars," just looped and with the addition of a hi-hat. But he also points out that the two songs are melodically and harmonically different.  


And the dispute over whether a hit song by pop star Shakira was an illegal copy of a Dominican songwriter's work has taken another dramatic turn now that the music company behind the original lawsuit says its former attorney has a "deteriorating" medical condition and failed to represent it properly. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein reversed an earlier decision  after hearing new evidence about a cassette which had been used to register the song with the US Copyright Office and which also featured as an exhibit in the original trial. Sony/ATC Latin who were defendants in the original case produced new evidence which showed that the type of cassette on which the recording had been made was not available in 1998 when it was claimed the tape had been made. Furthermore the picture on the cover of the cassette depicted an adult singer named Jhoan Gonzalez, who because he was born in 1989, would have been aged nine years old, and so could not have been the singer on the tape, if it had been recorded in 1989. Cue a very annoyed Judge!

Both PCWorld and ZDnet  report on theTrans-Pacific Partnership Agreement - as both the U.S. and New Zealand governments have published the full trade treaty, including details of what ISPs must do to defend others' copyrights. The deal sets out to reshape trade relations between countries including the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and New Zealand. Chapter 18, which covers intellectual property, has two annexes devoted to Internet service providers -- which in the treaty's terminology means providers of either Internet access or of services on the Internet, and how they must help police online copyright infringement and ZDNet leads with "The full text of the TPP ties in with WikiLeaks' leaked document last month, stating that ISPs must hand over copyright infringer details to rights holders when legally compelled - the text says ""Each party shall provide procedures, whether judicial or administrative, in accordance with that party's legal system, and consistent with principles of due process and privacy, that enable a copyright owner that has made a legally sufficient claim of copyright infringement to obtain expeditiously from an internet service provider information in the provider's possession identifying the alleged infringer, in cases in which that information is sought for the purpose of protecting or enforcing that copyright" which will certainly mean changes in some of the signatory countries' legislation. And more useful analysis on the IPKat here - echoing the CopyKats earlier thoughts - its all very Americanised - except no 'fair use' on offer!

And finally - but importantly, it seems that the European Commission has "pedalled back from making radical changes to Europe’s copyright regulations, according to a leaked version of its draft Copyright Framework seen by The Register who tell us it’s from a draft that isn’t due until 9 December. It seems the Commission will rule out creating a new EU wide copyright title - and the contentious word “geoblocking” doesn’t appear once. Instead the Commission recommends making a few tweaks to encourage the “portability” of content across borders - possibly because the EC's own survey discoverd that consumers were not as fixated on seeing content from other member states as Vice Commissioner Andrus Ansip was. The EC will look to “promote” a new pan-European search engine for finding legal content, promote more efficient funding, for, and use of, subtitling and dubbing supported by public funds and the Commission suggests “supporting rights holders and distributors to reach agreement on licenses” using mediation or dispute resolution, and wants to promote out-of-print works. The EC also now just 'aspiring' to reassess copyright exceptions - so they don’t hamper “online courses and cross border learning”, and easing text and data mining restrictions - but its a watered down version of what was planned. The EC will also be looking at the "making available" and "communication to the public" rights (and don't forget the Music Tank / University of Westminster panel on this very topic on November 10th (Creators’ Rights In The Digital Landscape). More on the IPKat here.

The CopyKat - has a treaty lined up for almost everyone

A judge in New York has placed dozens of Malibu Media subpoenas on hold after serious questions were raised about the nature of the copyright infringement cases after a motion to quash filed by a defendant who argued that so called 'copyright troll' employed methods  to identify infringers that were suspect and that Malibu Media is engaged in abusive and extortion-like practices. Adult video outfit Malibu Media (X-Art) is the most litigious copyright claimant in the US,  filing over 4,500 cases in less than 4 years, Citing a University of Washington study which famously that a printer had received a DMCA notice for copyright infringement, the motion concludes that the techniques employed by Malibu for tracking down infringers are simply not up to the job. Citing the earlier words of Judge Harold Baer, the motion notes that “troll” cases not only risk the public embarrassment of a misidentified defendant, but also create the likelihood that he or she will be “coerced into an unjust settlement with the plaintiff to prevent the dissemination of publicity surrounding unfounded allegations.”  Judge Steven Locke held "Because the arguments advanced in the Doe Defendant’s Motion to Quash raise serious questions as to whether good cause exists in these actions to permit the expedited pre-answer discovery provided for in the Court’s September 4, 2015 Order, the relief and directives provided for in that Order are stayed pending resolution of the Doe Defendant’s Motion to Quash,” A total of 88 subpoenas in the Eastern District are now placed on hold.

Yoga was back in the CopyKats paws after numerous reports that Indian-American yoga guru Bikram Choudhury had lost a case asking for copyright protection for yoga poses and breathing exercises he developed. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favour of city-based Evolation Yoga, against whom Choudhury had filed a lawsuit in 2011, saying that copyright was not appropriate for Choudhury's Bikram Yoga sequences because "it was an idea, process, or system designed to improve health, rather than an expression of an idea" adding it was also ineligible for copyright protection as a compilation or choreographic work. More on the Tribune here.

The City of Inglewood, California whose mayor James Butts who took action after online critic, Joseph Teixeira,  made some mocking videos using clips from city council meetings, has ended up with more egg on his face. Mayor Butts had already earmarked $50,000 of taxpayer money to fund the ill judged copyright lawsuit against Teixeira - which failed - the City could not assert copyright protection over City Council videos - and even is they were prptecetd, fair use would clearly apply. The court has now allowed Teixeira to claim legal fees totally $117,741 noting that the entire lawsuit was "objectively unreasonable." 


A leaked 'IP' chapter of the final Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement has atttracted much comment online - with most comments noting that signatories not already in line with the USA will have to adopt a number of 'Americanised' changes to alter the copyright laws of participating countries. The intellectual property chapter covers a broad range of issues including extended copyright terms, ISP liability and the criminalisation of non-commercial piracy.Provided the agreement is ratified, the copyright term will be set to the life of the author plus 70 years. This is already the case in the United States, but Canada for example will have to extend it's current term by 20 years.

The New Zealand government noted that its copyright term would likewise be extended,  saying the change "could benefit New Zealand artists in some cases, but the benefits are likely to be modest. Extending the copyright period also means New Zealand consumers and businesses will forego savings they otherwise would have made from books, music and films coming off copyright earlier". The Chapter also outlines how Internet services should deal with copyright infringement, with a section that 'mimics' the DMCA, although this leaves room for the Canadian notice-and-notice scheme to stay intact. Finally If TPP is ratified, the circumvention of DRM will be banned as well. In addition, manufacturers will not be allowed to sell circumvention tools such as DVD or Blu-Ray rippers. As this blogger had noted before, the US seem less keen to allow other signatories to develop their own 'fair use' doctrines - something of course enshrined in UK law. Other big winners with the new Pacific Rim treaty, which removes some 18.000 tariffs and trade restrictions, are poultry, beef and dairy farmers - but big pharma is seen as a loser - with no extension to protections against generic rivals, and the tobacco industry is seen as a loser too. And the Treaty isn't even guaranteed a home run in the USA - presidential hopeful Hilary Clinton, previously thought to be a strong supporter, has now publicly spoken against the TPP. And just to add to the confusion, here in Europe we have the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - another trade agreement, and here one that seeks to remove tariffs and regulatory barriers between the US and the EU. The TTIP is already under fire in the UK from the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and organisations such as Global Justice, who say the Treaty passes real power from democratically elected governments onto multinational corporations.  Around 250,000 people protested against the TTIP in Berlin last weekend. More on TorrentFreak here and the EFF here and Artstechnica here. The TPP participating nations are the US, Japan, Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, and Brunei. Together they represent about 40 percent of the global economy. There is an interesting analysis by Nicola over on the IPKat here.

The RIAA - on behalf of UMG, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Bros. Records, Atlantic and Capitol Records - has filed a lawsuit against Aurous and its founder Andrew Sampson for what it calls "wilful and egregious copyright infringement". It appears the recorded music sector's trade body will look to shut down the site using injunctive relief, and seek actual or statutory damages. we first noted Aurous on the 1709 blog back in September. The trade group said in a statement: "This service is a flagrant example of a business model powered by copyright theft on a massive scale. Like Grokster, Limewire or Grooveshark, it is neither licensed nor legal. We will not allow such a service to wilfully trample the rights of music creators" - more here.

And finally, Rapper Busta Rhymes has reached an undisclosed settlement in his Copyright infringement battle with hip-hop pioneers The Sugarhill Gang. Rhymes was sued by the group in 2012 for allegedly sampling their 1980s song 8th Wonder for his track Woo Hah! Got You All in Check. In the lawsuit, the band claimed 20 per cent of Rhymes' lyrics, including the phrase "Woo-Hah", came from their song. Rhymes had argued that the phrase was not protected by copyright and the action should be barred by the statute of limitations as out of time. More on Contact Music here.

And one last thing - my email account was hacked yesterday so if I 'emailed' you telling you I was in the Ukraine, I had been mugged and needed funds - errrm, the truth is that I am in the UK, I have not been mugged and I don't need your Money! The lesson from this is that, yes, train wi-fi is indeed 'open' so I won't be doing my emails on a Pendalino again! And Windows 10 deinstalled my anti virus software but I am struggling to deinstall said Widows 10 and get rid of it - a hideous system from the geeks at Microsoft. Grrrr and double grrrrr.

The CopyKat - that not quite so secret TPP Agreement is back in the news

China's copyright regulator has said that the online music copyright situation has improved since it ordered music providers to remove unlicensed songs in July. Music steaming services had removed more than 2.2 million unlicensed songs as of Friday, said the National Copyright Administration (NCA). Internet companies have also improved their efforts in copyright cooperation, said the NCA. However many commentators such as Billboard saying piracy remains a major issue saying "Well, that deadline has passed, and sites like VeryCD, which allows illegal downloads, and the popular QQ for streaming, are still up and running and still serving up artists like The Beatles". 

Torrent Freak have led with an article headlined "iTunes illegal under UK cpoyright law": TF reached out to the UK Intellectual Property Office, which provided some very clear answers on the recent decision in BASCA v Secretary of State for Innovation and Skills [2015] EWHC 1723 (Admin) saying: “It is now unlawful to make private copies of copyright works you own, without permission from the copyright holder – this includes format shifting from one medium to another,” a spokesperson informed us. The IPO specifically notes that copying a CD to an MP3 player is not permitted. TF says this  means that iTunes’ popular ripping feature, which Apple actively promotes during the software’s installation, is illegal.

The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) continues to attract interest and comment - almost all negative. The latest leaks have revealled that there is a widening disagreement between member nations on the deal’s 'draconian' copyright and intellectual property (IP) provisions which appears to be a split between the USA and almost all of the other 11 potential signatories on a number of copyright provisions. The 12-nation trade pact would put nearly 40 percent of global trade under a trade agreement aimed at spurring growth and closer trade ties between the Asia Pacific region and Western Hemisphere countries. The US's moves to extend the term of copyright beyond life of author plus 70 years is being resisted as are the text that allows authorities to seize and destroy equipment that infringe copyright, as well as “materials and implements relevant to the infringement” such as computers or servers that host such materials. The leak reveals that the U.S. is opposing a measure that would limit these laws to goods “predominantly” used in infringement, instead calling for the seizure and destruction of equipment that committed only 'minor infractions' of these laws according to the International Business Times. TechDirt takes a different tack, looking at the USA's resistance to 'fair use' provisions with the headline "Why Does The TPP Repeatedly Require Stronger Copyright, But When It Comes To Public Rights... Makes It Voluntary?" saying what the USTR is really proposing is a limit on fair use by proposing a rule that would act as a ceiling for the kind of fair use-like protections for the public and making any provisons (in effect) voluntary by using the qualifications that signatories 'shall endeavour' to bring in a fair use scheme - almost all other provisions in the next must be incorporated into signatnories' domestic laws. A Canadian perspective here.

The EFF say this: "For starters, countries are resisting U.S. negotiators' audacious proposal to distort trade secrets law into a weapon against hackers, journalists, and whistleblowers. There are two new proposals in this leaked text, one of which the U.S. itself supports, to allow countries to adopt a narrow safe harbor for whistleblowers in respect of information that exposes a violation of the law. But this is far from enough. The safe harbor isn't compulsory and it doesn't apply to leaks of information that are of vital public interest, but that don't expose illegality—such as the TPP text itself. Another important area of dissent from the U.S. negotiators' hard line appears in the Enforcement section of the IP chapter, in which every single country is now lined up against the U.S. in favor of a remedy for victims of wrongful copyright abuse" with the EFF posing the question "one has to ask why the U.S. administration wishes to prevent its trading partners from adopting a basic protection for victims of copyright trolls that already exists in U.S. law".

Those Turtles

The New York State Broadcasters Association has filed an amicus brief in the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in case betwewen sixties pop stars the Turtles (Flo & Eddie - Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman) and SiusXM, contesting the lower court's assertion in dicta that the performance rights being established under common law might apply to broadcast radio as well and  arguing that New York state law does not support a common law performance right in sound recordings and saying that upholding such rights would be "impractical and destructive."  "(T)he District Court’s sweeping alteration of the law is unsupported by prior case law, legislative history at the federal level, and the history of the recording and broadcasting industries in New York State," the NYSBA says, adding that "broadcast radio is fundamentally different from satellite radio; broadcast radio is not subscription based and has been a fixture in the music industry for decades.  In fact, broadcast radio is the very medium that made Respondent’s music famous by disseminating it to the public at large at no cost." The brief also argues that "the District Court fashioned a new common law performance right in sound recordings that heretofore never existed," the brief asserted that radio airplay sells music and that common law copyrights for sound recordings have never included performance rights but only against unauthorized reproduction.  And the brief argued that ruling to expand the imputed performance right would result in "financial distress for broadcasters, perverse incentives for artists, and uncertainty for everyone". More here and here. Having prevailed in Claifornia and New York in establishing that state laws protect the public performance of pre-1972 sound recording,  the litigants lost their claim for common law protection of pre-1972 sound recordings in Florida where the judge said no law existed to protect such rights and that the coirt was not disposed to create a new property right which is a matter of the legislature.

Ray Charles

And finally, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has 'breathed new life' into a case highlighting an interesting intersection of the worlds of estate planning and copyright law. The case in question was initiated in 2012 by the Ray Charles Foundation against 7 of the musician’s 12 children, to block their attempted terminations of copyrights in 51 of Charles’ songs, including “I Got A Woman” and “Hallelujah, I Love Her So.” to get the return of the copyrights. The charitable Foundation was Charles’ sole heir and received the entirety of his estate, including the rights to receive royalties for his songs.  Charles' children, each got a trust worth $500,000 apiece shortly before his death and were required to sign written contracts effectively waiving their rights to any other inheritance. Regular readers will recall the termination right the children are attempting to assert is created under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 which allows an artist or his surviving heirs to terminate a copyright 35 years after it was granted.  The Ninth Circuit has now reversed the lower court’s dismissal of the Foundation claim, ruling that the foundation had standing since it receives royalties from the copyrights held by Warner/Chappell Music and so had  standing as a “real party in interest” ruling “It is undisputed that copyright ownership lies with Warner/Chappell, but just as the termination notices affect Warner/Chappell’s ownership of copyrights, they also directly affect the foundation’s right to royalties” and “The foundation is the sole recipient of royalties flowing from Charles’s copyright grants and effective termination would deprive it of the right to receive prospective royalties. We thus have little difficulty concluding that the foundation is litigating its own stake in this controversy.": (Ray Charles Foundation v. Raenee Robinson et al., case number 13-55421, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.). 

The CopyKat - eagles, trolls and honeypots

The provision in the Polish Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act that gives the injured party an option to claim what are in effect punitive and triple damages based on a market rate licence fee multiplied times three has been held unconstitutional by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal.  The decision was made upon a request filed by UPC – one of largest digital cable television providers in Poland after UPC faced a court decision awarding punitive damages against UPC in favour of the Association of Polish Film Makers for rebroadcasting of TV programs without paying a license fee. More here .

What looks like an interesting looking book called It’s One for the Money: The Song Snatchers Who Carved Up a Century of Pop & Sparked a Musical Revolution by Clinton Heylin is out on Constable, its £20 and the  ISBN is 9781472111906. The Spectator describes it thus: "Clinton Heylin’s book is packed with examples ... of what strange things can happen when popular music and copyright law collide. Throughout the 20th century, he argues, songwriters happily borrowed, were influenced by or just nicked other songwriters’ ideas. (One of the book’s more unexpected snippets is that the Sex Pistols stole the introduction to ‘Pretty Vacant’ from Abba’s ‘SOS’.) But, because the serious money has always been in song publishing, this has not only created some great music. It’s also given record company types endless opportunities for unscrupulous profit."

Google has won a partial legal victory on over German performing rights society GEMA, which had sought to make the company's video-sharing service YouTube pay each time users streamed music videos by artists it represents. A Munich court rejected GEMA's demand that YouTube pay 0.375 euro cents ($0.004) per stream of certain videos. In its claim, GEMA had picked out a sample of 1,000 videos which it said would cost YouTube around 1.6 million euros. However the German regional court  ruled that Google's video-sharing website YouTube must prevent users from posting material that infringes copyright law once such a video has been brought to its attention. "However, if such a service provider has been made aware of a clear violation of the law, it must not only remove the content, but also must take precautions to avoid further infringements of copyrights," the court said in its ruling. GEMA may appeal the ruling. More here.

But not to assets ......

The MegaUpload case is back in the US courts after former MegaUpload executivess filed an appeal with the Fourth Circuit appellate court, arguing that the judge which originally considered the forfeiture requests which stripped them of assets  violated due process and denied Kim Dotcom and his fellow defendants their basic rights. The appeal also disputes the defining of the former MegaUpload executives as "fugitives", noting that while they are indeed fighting efforts to have them extradited to the US, they are doing so in accordance with the laws of the countries where they currently reside, which is New Zealand for Dotcom.

TorrentFreak reports that over the past months two of The Pirate Bay co-founders have been questioned by Swedish police, acting on behalf of the FBI. The officers were looking for information on Pirate Bay backups and logs as part of an investigation into the 'honeypot scheme' of the notorious Prenda copyright trolls - allegedly looking for evidence evidence that the so called copyright trolls Prenda Law uploaded their own torrents to The Pirate Bay, creating a honeypot for the people they later sued over pirated downloads. The crucial evidence to back up this allegation came from The Pirate Bay, who shared upload logs with TorrentFreak that tied a user account and uploads to Prenda and its boss John Steele. TorrentFreak says that the confirmation comes from Pirate Bay co-founders Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij, who independently informed TF that they were questioned about Prenda during their stays in prison. More on Prenda here and here. 

A newly leaked TPP chapter "shows countries converging on anti-user copyright takedown rules". It seems the secret negotiations haven't all been US led and indeed some of the other potential signatories have resisted a carbon copy of the DMCA - mot least Canada which says it has a better takedown system, and the EFF say that notable improvem,ents include (i) the text now requires parties to provide penalties for knowingly false takedown notices (but also for false counter-notices) (ii) content that has been removed in response to a takedown notice must be restored if a valid counter-notice is received,  (iii) a failure of an intermediary to satisfy safe harbor conditions should not automatically make them liable for the user’s copyright infringement—it just means that they are no longer protected from being found liable in court and (iv) the limitations on liability that intermediaries enjoy may not be made conditional on their proactively monitoring uploads to their networks.

And finally - on Thursday (tomorrow), MEPs will make their opinions on copyright in Europe known – by voting on Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda’s review of the Information Society Directive. Its not binding - but may give Commissioner Gunther Oettinger, who is drawing up changes to copyright laws in Europe - some indication of where MEP's are on copyright reform -  on everything from geo-blocking to fair use to the Freedom of Panorama to 'Google' levies to the terms of copyrights to media pluralism. 

UPDATE: Eleonora has posted an update on the vote by the European Parliament which by 445 votes to 65 (with 32 abstentions), the Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution which assesses the implementation of the key aspects of this EU directive ahead of upcoming Commission plans to update the relevant legislative framework in the area of copyright. Eleonora's key headlines: Freedom of panorama not to be restricted - and a rejection of the German led proposal for EU-wide ancillary right over news content. More 
here http://ipkitten.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/eu-parliament-rejects-restrictions-on.html - and the EFF have their own somewhat more opinionated comment here and the Register takes an in interesting stance here.

The CopyKat - its greeeeeaaaat to be a copied cat

The author Jeffrey Archer has complained to the Indian Government in an attempt to stop Bollywood producers stealing his novels and turning them into films without his permission. Archer claims that his novel Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less  was turned into the 2011 romantic comedy hit Ladies v Ricky Bahl, and that Archer's Kane & Abel became the film Khudgarz. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it transpired Archer was in India promoting a new novel. As for future movies, The Times says he told prospective film makers to contact his agent in London. 

Jay-Z has settled a copyright claim brought against him by a Swiss musician who claimed the rapper lifted a sample from an original 1978 song and used it without the artist’s consent. Bruno Spoerri, a 79-year-old Swiss jazz musician, will get 50% of royalties from Jay-Z’s 2013 song “Versus,” reports the Daily Mail. The rapper agreed to a settlement after a year and a half-long legal battle in which Spoerri claimed Jay-Z used a portion of his 1978 song “On the Way” without first clearing the sample with his record label. You can compare the two tracks here http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2015/03/13/music-lawsuit-frenzy-jay-z-latest-to-settle-copyright-claim-awards-50-royalties-to-swiss-musician/

And more .... counsel for Jay-Z and Kanye West expressed confidence that musician Joel R. McDonald’s assertion that the famed rappers' 2011 hit "Made In America" ripped him off would fail, as a Manhattan federal judge prepared to give the songs a listen. The defendants' motion to dismiss is before U.S. District Judge Allison J. Nathan and will be fully briefed by the end of March. The defendants say their tune and McDonald's 2008 work of the same name are “are two completely different songs.”

And with Marvin Gaye's children now musing what other songs may have been 'copied' from their father's work (the last I heard, it was Pharrell Williams in the firing line again for his smash hit 'Happy', which Nona Gaye  says is a copy of Hayes 1966 song 'Ain’t That Peculiar') an appeal in the Blurred Lines case has been formally announced. Robin Thicke and William's lawyer Howard King told reporters "we owe it to songwriters around the world to make sure this verdict doesn't stand". Speaking to Fox Business News, he went on: "My clients know that they wrote the song 'Blurred Lines' from their hearts and souls and no other source. We are going to exercise every post trial remedy we have to make sure this verdict does not stand. We look at it as being in the seventh innings of a game that could go into extra innings". At the trial the Gaye family also said that that Thicke and his estranged wife Paula Patton's co-written track 'Love After War' plagiarised their father's song 'After the Dance'. 

The IP Court of Venice has held that a work created by a lawyer for their client in the performance of legal services was indeed protected by copyright law. The court found that the piece in question, a review of anti-counterfeit regulations, “possesses a creative quality, epitomised by originality and novelty” because the work was "“the result of a personal, original, new and creative elaboration of legal concepts and industry practices and of the experiences of the author” The third-party defendant in the case who was found to have infringed the copyright was ordered to compensate damages determined on an equitable basis (the fact that the regulation was available on the Internet did limit, according to the Court, the harmfulness of the conduct) and ordered the publication of the decision in two newspapers, one national and one local.

UK blocking orders against the Pirate Bay put in place by BT, EE, Virgin and TalkTalk are now seemingly ineffective, possibly as a result of The Pirate Bay switching to an SSL service provided by US company CloudFlare, which made the HTTPS version of the Bay site (rather than the HTTP version) the default address.

Talking of blocking, the Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda, who is currently leading the European Parliaments review into the harmonisation of EU copyright law, has highlighted her view that geo-blocking within the Union is a threat to European culture saying "One cross-border issue users feel strongly about is 'geoblocking'. Most of us are familiar with the error message “This video/content/service is not available in your country.” There’s no digital single market when travellers can't use the services they pay for once they cross a border, linguistic minorities are denied access to cultural works in their native language, innovative services are only available in the big member states because of varying regional hurdles – or UK MEPs are blocked from following the cricket in Brussels." 

The CopyKat is scampering off out BUT just noted this : A Brussels court has ruled that Belgian ISPs don’t have to pay copyright levies for offering access to copyright protected materials online. In an action brought by collection society  Sabam against  the country’s three biggest ISPs (Belgacom, Telenet and Voo) the court of the first instance in Brussels and found that Internet access providers are not liable for information transmitted over their networks. 

Image from wikileaks

The EFF updates us on the Trans Pacific Partnership treaty: "We are deeply concerned about this situation in which important decisions for our nation’s culture and society are being made behind closed doors" reads a joint public statement from Japanese activists who are fighting the copyright provisions in the TPP. A group of artists, archivists, academics, and activists, have joined forces in Japan to call on their negotiators to oppose requirements in the TPP that would require their country, and five of the other 11 nations negotiating this "secretive agreement", to expand their copyright terms to match the United States' already excessive length of copyright.

And finally .... noting that the content industries have managed to blame everyone but themselves for their business woes, Rick Falkvinge, a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, opines: "The copyright industry has managed to kill civil liberties for their own children, ushering in a dystopian surveillance machine, merely to avoid taking responsibility for their own business failures. I lack words to quantify my contempt for these utter parasites." The piece is called "Piracy is just another copyright industry scapegoat" and It's WELL worth a read here!

The CopyKat - seasoned, sliced, stirred, baked, reduced, arranged - but that's no recipe for copyright success

News reaches the Copykat that China's 2014 Sword Campaign has dealt with 440 cases: The annual Sword Campaign against online copyright infringements recorded 440 cases in 2014 of which 66 were transferred for criminal investigation. 750 websites were shut down and fines of RMB3.5 million (approx. £350,000) issued. The Sword Campaign is run by the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC), the State Internet Information Office (SIIO), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). More here (in Chinese).


More from China - with news that a new society has been launched to promote legal downloads and streaming of music in one of the world's booming economies. Liu Ping, deputy director-general of the Music Copyright Society of China, said the healthy development of online economy calls for a copyright protection mechanism at the launch of the Legitimate Online Music Promotion Union in Beijing. The Union aims to promote the development of the online music copyright industry in China, protect the copyright and legal rights of involved persons, and discuss the copyright protection measures of Chinese online music. The Union published an anti-piracy declaration at the launch ceremony, saying that they will crack down the infringement of music products through legal measures, and seek legal actions against the music pirates. First members includes the Music Copyright Society of China and companies providing online music fincluding Tencent, Koowo and KuGou Networks and record labels includnig Sony, Warner and Decca records. Image CFP. 

A federal judge has told a Cleveland restaurateur that food recipes can't be protected by copyright law after Rosemarie I. Carroll took legal action against a local rival offering similar dishes. Carroll, the owner of Cleveland eatery Tomaydo-Tomahhdo, said that she owned the copyright to a book of her recipes — a copyright she says her erstwhile business partner Larry Moore infringed by offering similar dishes at his own catering business. Interestingly, and  explaining her summary judgement in favour of the defendants, Judge Patricia A Gaughan noted that Carroll had not developed the recipes herself and had further testified that she did not know how Moore developed his recipes or what served as Moore’s inspiration for the development of those recipes. The menus both consist of basic fare, including sandwiches, salads, pizza, chicken wings, and the like. According to Moore, none of the menu items were new or innovative and none contained unique or signature ingredients. Whilst Carroll had indeed produced a book of recipes, the defendants argued that the plaintiff's copyright infringement claim must fail because the plaintiffs have no protectable interest in the recipes contained in the recipe book. According to the defendants, copyright protection did not extend to the recipes themselves. At best, if the recipe book was worthy of copyright protection, it extended only to the layout and other artistic embodiments contained in the book itself. The Defendants also argued that  as they had no access to the recipe book, there could be no infringement and the defendants further argued that there was no evidence suggesting that defendants had copied the recipes. The Judge held that even if Carroll's book had a copyright as a compilation (in the "order and manner of the presentation of the compilation’s elements") there was no copyright in the actual recipes: "The identification of ingredients necessary for the preparation of food is a statement of facts. There is no expressive element deserving copyright protection in each listing. Thus, recipes are functional directions for achieving a result and are excluded from copyright protection under 17 U.S.C. 102(b)" adding for good measure "Certainly plaintiffs cannot be suggesting that somehow the copyright prevents defendants from serving chicken salad sandwiches". The federal court declined to address the trade secret or breach of contract claims which had been brought, finding these were more appropriate for state court. Tomaydo-Tomahhdo LLC et al v. George Vozary et al CASE NO. 1:14 CV 469  US District Court  Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division.  And more here.

Rightscorp have failed in their efforts to convince a US court that the DMCA can be used to identify potential downloaders of infringing materials under the fast track DMCA subpoena system. Unlike regular subpoenas, these are not reviewed by a judge and only require a signature from the court clerk. ISP CBeyond (which is not part of the US Copyright Alert System) declined to hand over customer data and argued that DMCA subpoenas, because they are in essence fast-tracked, are limited to specific kinds of alleged copyright infringement, and are not suitable for those accused of simply accessing unlicensed sources of content - the fast track should be reserved for those host unlicensed content. According to Torrentfreak, Rightscorp argued that that this argument unfairly hindered rights owners who sought to protect their copyrights, and that anti-piracy activity is exactly the sort of thing the DMCA should be simplifying. But the judge hearing the case said, while that may be a credible argument, that's not what the DMCA, as currently worded, allows, and it was for Congress to amend the rules. The federal court in Georgia ruled: "“CBeyond contends that the section does not apply to service providers that act only as a conduit for data transferred between other parties and that do not store data. The court agrees,” and Magistrate  Judge Janet King added "It is the province of Congress, not the courts, to decide whether to rewrite the DMCA in order to make it fit a new and unforeseen internet architecture and accommodate fully the varied permutations of competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new technology". An appeal is planned.

And after recent reports that Ian Fleming's body of work including the James Bond 007 stories would enter in the public domain in Canada after a term of life of the author plus 50 years expired, comes news from the EFF and others that planned signatories of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement (which include Japan and New Zealand who have similar copyright protection terms) have "caved in" to U.S. pressure and have agreed to extend their copyright term to life plus 70 years.  NHK reports that a deal on copyright term has been reached within the TPP with countries agreeing to a US standard 'Micky Mouse' term of life plus 70 term. Alongside Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Vietnam (the TPP countries that adhere to the Berne standard), "it appears that Canada has dropped its opposition to the change."

US ousted by China in TPP replacement?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, which many had said had "troubling" provisions pushed through by the United States government (not least "draconian" US based copyright laws - but no fair use) may have died a death. This is not because of the likes of Gizmodo alerting the world to the TPP as “the biggest global threat to the Internet since ACTA” but, according to the Times newspaper, because a number of the ten countries, including Australia, who were set to sign the US Trade Agreement are now planning a new free trade agreement with China which the Chinese president Xi Jinpong said "is a historic step in the direction of an Asia-Pacific free trade area".    

Today the CopyKat pokes a ponderous paw at politics

Stan McCoy, the assistant US Trade Representative who oversaw the creation of the copyright provisions in ACTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership has left the Obama administration for a job at the film industry's lobbying group, the MPAA. The Obama administration has headhunted software industry lobbyist Robert Holleyman  (who supported SOPA) to take over his job. More on this revolving door between the US government and content owners' lobby groups and trade associations on Vox here.

Karl Marx

An unusual copyright spat has caught the attention of a number of blogs who noticed that the radical publishing house Lawrence & Wishart - at one time was connected to Great Britain's Communist Party - was demanding the removal from the Marxists Internet Archive of the "Marx-Engels Collected Works" - a series of US $25-$50 hard cover books - because the texts were their translations - and they had copyright in those translations. The archive has posted a message to its readers informing them that Lawrence & Wishart's material would be removed by April 30 although that "English translations of Marx and Engels from other sources will continue to be available." The Socialist Worker asks "Should Marx and Engels be copyrighted?" quoting an opinion from Andrew Leonard who says  'I wonder — just how angry would Karl Marx get if he learned that the publisher of his collected works, in the name of maximizing profits, was using copyright law to hinder the cause of “equipping the working-class movement with the scientific ideology… for the realization… of communism” ?' More here: http://socialistworker.org/blog/critical-reading/2014/04/26/should-marx-and-engels-be-copy

Reed on oh great minister

Popular Bulgarian musicians have delivered proposals for amendments to the Bulgarian Copyright Act at the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture in Sofia to Bulgarian Minister of Culture Petar Stoyanovich and Deputy Minister of Culture Vasil Vasilev by symbolically handing over their proposals written on papyrus. The proposals for amendments concern five articles of the Bulgarian Copyrights Act: Article 21 (cable re-transmission); Article 26 (free carriers); Article 40 (tariffs regulation); Article 58; and Article 98. At the meeting it was agreed to hold another meeting in two weeks. Different Bulgarian musicians have united under the motto “For REVIVAL of the Bulgarian culture” supporting the cause of establishing stable legal preconditions for development of the Bulgarian culture and the wish of Bulgarian artists to declare their will for the establishment of an optimal mechanism for protection of their rights. The ministers expressed readiness to do their best to establish a normal environment where the Bulgarian artists can work and create. 

Trevor Clarke, Assistant Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has told a conference in Tehran that although Iran has taken concrete steps to protect the intellectual property rights, it should join the Universal Copyright Convention. Iran joined the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2001 and approved the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration in 2005.

And the United States has removed the Philippines from its blacklist of countries which fail to properly protect U.S. copyrights and patents, the U.S. Trade Representative said on Monday.
Whilst the Philippines had introduced laws to better protect intellectual property rights and also beefed up enforcement, there was more to be done with the USTR stating "Although significant challenges remain, the commitment of Philippine authorities and the results achieved merit this change in status". 

And finally, PCWorld lets us into a leak from the European Commission which reveals that EU lawmakers believe that micro-licensing could solve copyright problems related to user generated content (UGC). The document, which pre-dates the latest public consultation on EU copyright reform, takes the view that although there are problems with UCG, “legal certainty” may be provided through micro-licences: The document says that “There remain technological obstacles to the ability of UCG generators to identify themselves and reap economic reward for their work”.