3 Count: TekSavvy Savvy

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1: Google Files Another Motion to Dismiss Viacom’s YouTube Lawsuit

First off today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter writes that Google has filed a new summary judgment motion in its ongoing case against Viacom in another bid to end the case shortly.

Google, which owns YouTube, was sued by Viacom over alleged copyright infringements in YouTube’s early days, when Viacom and other content producers claim YouTube was a haven for copyright infringement. However, Google filed a motion for a summary judgment previously and was granted it under the grounds that YouTube qualified for DMCA safe harbor protections, which generally protect hosts of content if they remove infringing works expeditiously. However, that summary judgment was appealed to the 2nd Circuit, which eventually overturned it, sending the matter back to the lower court.

At question is whether or not YouTube was willfully blind to the infringements and, if it was, does that reach a level to disqualify the site for safe harbor protection. YouTube’s motion was filed under seal but the response on this topic has been widely anticipated. (h/t @terrencehart)

2: L.A. Film Studio Court Order Could Force TekSavvy to Hand Over Customer Information

Next up today, Omar El Akkad at The Globe and Mail reports that, mere weeks after Canada’s new copyright law came into force, a small local ISP has been hit with a demand by film studio Voltage Pictures for the user information attached to some 2,000 IP addresses suspected of illegal file sharing.

The ISP in question, TekSavvy, refused to hand over the data but, as per the new law, sent out notices to more than 1,100 of its customers to alert them that their information may eventually be handed over. However, the new law also greatly limits the damages in non-commercial infringement, TekSavvy has said that it has never seen a request of this size but it isn’t the first of its kind for Voltage, which earned a reputation in this area over similar requests for information on suspected infringers of The Hurt Locker.

3: Another Usenet Download Haven Axed, Leeds Pirates Avoid Jail

Finally today, Andrew Orlowski at The Register writes that, in the UK, two brothers, Faraz Saddiq and Ayaz Saddiq have been sentenced to nine months in jail, a sentence that was suspended for two years, and ordered to perform 150 hours of unpaid work. The duo had operated the sites filmzzz.com and legalmovies.tv, both of which were presented a legitimate operatations but were merely pointing to unlicensed copyrighted material available for streaming.

The brothers ignored warnings from the police that what they were doing was a criminal offense and
eventually were arrested following a probe by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). The arrest and sentencing fallows a similar case for Anton Vickerman, who ran the site SurfTheChannel and was sentenced to four years in jail.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will 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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