3 Count: Arbitrary Arbitron

Jonathan BaileyMay 29, 2013

2 minutes read

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

1: Copyright Troll Lawyer Pleads Poverty, Asks To Be Let Off The Hook

First off today, Kelly Phillips at Forbes reports that Brett Gibbs, a lawyer who worked as a contractor for Prenda Law, is asking to be excused from paying fees and penalties that a judge has ordered, claiming that he is both impoverished and battling terminal brain cancer.

Prenda Law is the copyright “troll” firm that gained fame for sending suing thousands of “John Doe” BitTorrent users identified by only IP address and, after obtaining their identities from their ISPs, would threaten them with a lawsuit if they did not pay up. However, when one defendant fought back, it was revealed that the clients Prenda was representing were most likely shell companies for the lawyers themselves.

Gibbs, who worked for Prenda but was not actually an employee, was sanctioned along with other attorneys involved. However, he is now asking to be excused from his penalties due to both extreme poverty and terminal cancer. The judge is yet to rule on Gibbs’ motion.

2: Arbitron Files for Copyright Breach Against Broadcaster

Next up today, Simon Miller at Research reports that audience measuring service Abritron has filed suit against Saga, a broadcasting company and a subsidiary, Lakefront, for copyright infringement.

The lawsuit, which was filed in Delaware, alleges that Lakefront copied and diistributed Arbitron audience reports as part of its promotion to potential advertisers even though the company did not have a license to do so. The lawsuit is seeking “not less than $150,000 per act of infringement” plus others costs and damages.

Arbitron recently settled a similar case with another broadcaster, a TV station in Cleveland, in April.

3: Google, David Lowery and the BPI Talk Ad-funded Piracy

Finally today, Stuart Dredge at Muisc Ally writes that, at the recent debate in London musician David Lowery (best known in copyright circles for The Trichordist), BPI head Geoff Taylor and Theo Bertrand, the UK policy manager at Google among others shared the stage in a debate on the topic of ad-funded piracy online.

Lowery attacked Google on the issue of piracy, noting that many of the top results for illegal downloads had Google-supported ads. Google said that, while it recognized that it had to do more, it was handling such problems at a record pace and that the best approach for dealing with these sites was to put them out of business.

Google also said that blocking websites was not effective, noting that such activity can lead to a game of “Wac-a-mole” where for every site you knock down, two or three more come up.

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.