3 Count: Primal Rage

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

1: Serbian Photojournalists Appeal Against Threat to Copyright

First off today, Aleksandar Vasovic at Reuters reports that Serbian photojournalists are appealing to their government to reject a proposal that they claim would strip their work of copyright protection.

The proposed change would define photographs as the result of a “routine mechanical act”. However, the Progressive Party, which submitted the motion last week, claims that the proposal is about distinguishing between artistic works and images that they claim are not worthy of copyright protection.

Photojournalists complain that they works are already widely infringed upon by newspapers in the country and that the court system is inadequate to help them. They go on to say that this proposed re-interpretation would only further legalize such infringement and remove protection from nearly all works of photography.

2: Far Cry Primal Will Use Just Cause 3’s Anti-Piracy Tech

Next up today, Akhil Arora at Gadgets360 reports that two major upcoming video game releases, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Far Cry Primal, are both slated to use Denuvo digital rights management (DRM) protection, the same protection that, so far, has proved unbeatable on Just Cause 3.

Just Cause 3 was released on November 30, 2015 and was the first PC game to make use of the new DRM. The Chinese cracking group 3DM said earlier this month that they were struggling to break the protection and had nearly given up. They also warned that, with the advancement of content-protection systems, the era of free, pirated PC games could be coming to an end.

The use of the software was reported by users and discovered via updates and changes to the Steam pages for the games as well as updates on sites used by Denuvo. There has been no official announcement on either game.

3: The Site Lifting the Veil on Netflix’s Geo-Restrictions

Finally today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that an individual known only as “Brian” has set up a site entitled the Unofficial Netflix Online Global Search, which aims to highlight what countries movies and TV shows are available in different countries and what virtual private networks (VPNs) or services you can use to access them.

The site launches as Netflix has begun to take more aggressive action against those who try to access content outside of their country. Historically it has been trivial to use a VPN or proxy to access content outside of your region. Recent clampdowns, however, have begun to make that more difficult.

The site aims to be a searchable database of all the content available on Netflix globally and pair that information with providers that have endpoints in the countries a work is available, letting users know who to use and what country to connect to. The site itself doesn’t violate any copyright laws, relying on Netflix and other APIs to pull its data, but many speculate that the site may be shuttered.

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.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.