3 Count: Twitter Rant

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: Artist Finds His Own Music Video Removed From YouTube, Lashes Out On Twitter

First off today, in the story that seems to have caught Twtitter by storm, musician Calvin Harris has gone on an obscenity-strewn rant after his official video for “Ready for the Weekend – Original Mix” was removed from his own YouTube account. To recap, that’s his own video being removed from his own YouTube account.

However, the plot thickens as the tipster that first notified the author of this article is claiming that this is part of a larger feud between the record labels who, according to this source, are filing takedown notices against each other’s content on YouTube in an effort to sabotage their efforts.

Personally, that seems highly unlikely to me as the DMCA provides very harsh penalties for filing knowingly false notices and record labels are in more than an adequate position to file suit over this kind of matter. This is furthered by the fact that this takedown appears to have been filed by BPI, Harris’ own label.

Still, that didn’t stop Harris from going on one very angry rant. Bear in mind there is some pretty harsh language in the article linked above.

2: Apple takes legal heel off throat of wiki operator

Next up, Apple appears to have backed off in its dispute with the owner of BluWiki. The site, which is a wiki hosting service, was sent several letters of complaint by Apple after a user of the service, who had created a wiki entitled ItunesDB, was hosting a dialog about how to break the encryption on the iPod and related products in order to make other applications work with them.

Apple complained that this was a violation of their rights under the DMCA, which also prohibits the circumvention of digital rights management schemes, and the two had been going back and forth for approximately seven months. However, after the EFF filed suit against Apple, asking for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement, Apple has decided to back off, rescind its cease and desist and allow the works to be reposted. EFF for their part, is withdrawing the suit.

This matter does seem to be resolved but it did take seven months and a lawsuit, not exactly an easy or swift ending.

3: UK men pirate more than women; everyone confused over rights

Finally today, a new survey from the UK shows that men are more likely to pirate movies and music than women, 50 percent of men versus 38 percent of women and, perhaps most worrisome, that 60 percent didn’t think musicians should be paid for their music online.

The survey also showed that piracy is on the rise in the UK, which directly contradicts and earlier study that found it was going down, even among teens, and there was also a great deal of confusion about copyright in general, with a quarter saying they didn’t have any rights to content they posted online and a “majority” saying that anything on the Web was free to use.

It’s a very worrisome report that highlights what is likely a need for better education on these topics.

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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