3 Count: Taken Away

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

1: 9th Circuit Finds for PI Firm Over Theft of Firm’s Web Site Content

First off today, the 9th Circuit appeals court has sided with Brayton Purcell, a personal injury firm, in a lawsuit against Recordon & Recordon a smaller firm that allegedly used marketing material from Brayton’s site in their own.

This may seem to be ho-hum but could easily be one of the most important copyright cases in the past few years.

The reason is that, Brayton is located in San Francisco and Recordon in San Diego. Brayton sued Recordon in the northern district, their district, and the appeal was on the issue of jurisdiction. The The judge found that Brayton could sue Recordon in their home district because Recordon had “expressly aimed” its conduct by using content from a company in the northern district.

This means that, at least theoretically, one can sue for copyright infringement in their home district, regardless of where the infringer resides. This also means anyone can be hauled into any other district for a copyright complaint.

Obviously, this could create a major shakeup in the entire system, and all of it over a relatively minor issue in this case.

2: Apple bans App Store’s 3rd-most prolific developer

Next up today, Apple has taken the unusual step of giving the boot to an entire company from its App store, due largely to copyright issues.

The company Perfect Acumen, which is owned by Khalid Shaik, has had their developer license stripped after Apple claims to have received numerous complaints of copyright infringement involving various applications they produced.

Perfect Acumen, which appears to be based in India but has most of its employees in Pakistan, seemed to specialize largely in photos of celebrities, possibly explaining the copyright issues.

Perfect Acumen was, reportedly, the 3rd largest iPhone developer in terms of library size.

3: Lindens Announce Upcoming “Content Seller Program” — The End of (Most) In-World Content Theft to Follow?

Finally, though I don’t talk a great deal about Second Life news, this story seemed to be worth a mention.

Linden Lab, the maker of Second Life, is setting up a “content seller program” that it hopes creators will use to register their works and will require the filer to provide a real name and certify that “all necessary intellectual property rights and licenses have been obtained for all content that the Resident has for sale.”

This is aimed to strengthen the reputation and brands of sellers in Second Life, who create virtual goods that are often copied without permission, and may help make cases of copyright infringement more clear cut.

The company also said that they are streamlining their DMCA takedown process and a “sticky” licensing system that will apply to works taken out of Second Life.

This comes after years of content creators expressing concerns over content theft in Second Life, with little done by Linden Lab, other than following a very difficult and time-consuming DMCA process.

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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