3 Count: Another Challenger

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1: NFL Pursues Aereo for Unsportsmanlike Conduct

First off today, Gina Hall at Biz Journals reports that both the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB) have filed briefs with the Supreme Court in the case of Aereo, hoping to get the court to take the case and rule against the TV streaming service.

Aereo is a service that uses a series of tiny antennas to capture and record over the air broadcast television for later streaming to users. Broadcasters sued Aereo in several states but, so far, have been unable to secure an injunction. However, the broadcasters have petitioned the Supreme Court, after losing on appeal of the denied injunction, which is what the NFL and MLB are filing petitions in.

According to the sports organizations, if Aereo were to prevail, broadcasters would lose a great deal of their measurable audience and that, in turn, would force many of them to switch to formats that could not be retransmitted without permission, such as cable.

2: Rap Genius And NMPA Agree To Meet After Takedown Threats

Next up today, Sowmya Krishnamurthy at MTV reports that the lyrics site Rap Genius has entered talks with the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) to reach a licensing agreement.

Last week, the NMPA announced that it was sending takedown notices to what it considered the top 50 unlicensed lyrics sites and Rap Genius, a site that specializes in community annotations of song lyrics, was at the top of the list.

Rap Genius had previously received some $15 million in funding but many were surprised to find out that it did not license all of the lyrics it uses on the site. However, the site revealed that it had a deal with Sony/ATV though now it’s in talks with the NMPA to get other publishers on board.

3: Court Orders ISPs to Police the Internet for Pirate Bay Proxies

Finally today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that the Supreme Court of Belgium has ordered ISPs in the country to go beyond blocking The Pirate Bay and also proactively search for and block proxies to the site.

Belgium first ordered The Pirate Bay blocked in 2011 but proxy sites continued to provide access to Belgian users by acting as an intermediary. Last year, a new verdict was issued that required all ISPs to block “current and future domains” of the site, prompting a legal challenge from the ISPs, who felt the order went too far.

However, now the Supreme Court has ruled that the order is valid and, with no further options of appeal, will go into effect.

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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