3 Count: I’m a Creep

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

1:Lana Del Rey Says Radiohead Wants All Royalties for Her Song ‘Get Free’ Because It Sounds Like ‘Creep’

First off today, Kate Samuelson at Time reports that singer Lana Del Ray has been sued by the UK rock band Radiohead over alleged copyright infringement.

According to the lawsuit, Del Ray’s song Get Free, from her most recent album, sounds too similar to Radiohead’s famous 1992 song Creep. According to Del Ray, she attempted to reach a settlement with Radiohead previously about this, offering 40% of the song’s publishing royalties, but says that the band would not accept anything less than 100%.

In 1993, Radiohead was sued over Creep by the band The Hollies. In that lawsuit they claimed that Creep was an infringement of their song The Air That I Breathe. That case resulted in The Hollies being added as co-authors to Creep.

2:Sony Reaches Settlement Over Streaming Royalties to ‘American Idol’ Stars

Next up today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that Sony Music has reached a settlement with 19 Recordings, an entity that represents American Idol stars, over allegedly unpaid streaming royalties.

The case began in February 2014 and specifically looked at how Sony was treating royalties from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music. While the lawsuit dealt with a variety of claims, including a dismissed claim that Sony was deliberately accepting lower royalties, the main issue dealt with Sony’s paying royalties at the same as package sales (CDs, iTunes downloads, etc.) when the musicians felt the higher broadcasting rate should apply.

The case was heading toward a trial but the two sides now appear to have reached an agreement. Though the details of the agreement aren’t known, if accepted by the court, it would bring an amicable conclusion to the lawsuit and nearly four years of litigation.

3:White Noise Video on YouTube Hit by Five Copyright Claims

Finally today, Chris Baraniuk at BBC News reports that at a YouTube video containing nothing but white noise has received not one, but five different copyright claims.

The video was uploaded in 2015 by Australian musician Sebastian Tomczak. According to Tomczak, the video has received five separate copyright claims that, rather than take the video down, as seeking to claim ad revenue from the video. The claims were not filed directly by the rightsholders but came through YouTube’s automated Content ID system, which matches audio in videos to known rightsholders.

Tomczak says that the claims won’t severely hurt him as he doesn’t earn a great deal of revenue from YouTube but says that he will dispute the claims. He’s especially interested that the claims point to specific parts of the 10-hour video, further indicating that poor-quality matching is to blame.

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.