3 Count: 50% Off

This is daily column on Plagiarism Today where the site brings you three of the days biggest, most important copyright and plagiarism news links. If you want to offer your feedback on the column, use the contact form or just follow me on Twitter at @plagiarismtoday.

1: Prosecutors Reduce Charges Against The Pirate Bay

In the much-covered Pirate Bay trial in Sweden, prosecutors have dropped half of the charges, namely the ones pertaining to copyright infringement. The remaining charges focus on whether the site helped to make copyrighted works available.

Though the move is being correctly hailed as a victory for the accused, it is not very surprising considering the nature of bittorrent, where the actual copyrighted works are not hosted on the site. The IFPI has released a statement saying that the move will help the prosecutor by “allowing him to focus on the main issue”.

The prosecutor’s early case was also hampered by technical glitches when a computer expert called as a witness failed to get his presentation working properly. The trial is ongoing.

2: Mob Wars Creator Puts A Hit Out On Zynga, Sues For Copyright Infringement

The makers of the text-based social networking game Mob Wars have sued competitor Zynga for copyright infringement after they released a similar gamed entitled “Mafia Wars”.

Though little is known about the suit at this time, Mob Wars is rumored to bring in over $1 million per month and is one of the most popular games on Facebook. Whether it will be able to sustain a claim of copyright infringement, however, remains to be seen.

3: The New Zealand Internet Blackout

Finally today, a new campaign across Twitter and various social networking sites is aimed at protesting New Zealand’s ‘Section 92A’ law, which will disconnect alleged file sharers in the event that they receive enough complaints against them from copyright holders. The protest works by having users “black out” their avatars, replacing them with a simple black square.

Though initial drafts of the law did open the door for a “one strike” approach, something that was very controversial for obvious reasons, recent drafts of how the process would work have fleshed out a more “three-strikes” approach with much more narrow uses.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll 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.

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Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.