THE COPYKAT

Extradition to US for alleged torrenter Artem Vaulin

Artem Vaulin – the alleged owner of the torrenting site KickAss Torrents (“KAT”) and Ukranian national – is facing extradition to the United States. In July 2016 he was arrested in Poland and charged by criminal complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of criminal copyright infringement. Vaulin has been held in custody since his arrest, having been denied bail.

The US is alleging that Vaulin, who is 30 years old, is responsible for the unlawful distribution of $1 billion of copyrighted materials.

Vaulin’s American defence council has asked the Illinois District Court to dismiss the case, arguing that torrent files are not copyright protected. Vaulin’s defence team argued that “Torrent files are not content files. The reproduction and distribution of torrent files are not a crime.” The defence council continued; “If a third party uses torrent files to infringe it is after they leave the KAT site behind and such conduct is too random, inconsistent, and attenuated to impose criminal liability on Mr. Vaulin. The government cannot use the civil judge-made law in Grokster as a theory in a criminal case.”

The Warsaw District Court has ruled in a preliminary ruling that Vaulin can be extradited. The extradition process does, however, have another hearing until the decision is final, as the process is decided in two stages. If the lower court fully grants the extradition request, Vaulin will have recourse to the Polish Supreme Court. If extradition is granted, he will be facing a criminal trial in the US.

And more extradition! it's off to the US for alleged torrenter Kim Dotcom

Kim Dotcom has been at the centre of an extradition saga since 2012. He is the founder of Megaupload, another BitTorrent site. Dotcom, a German national with permanent residency rights in New Zealand, was arrested at the behest of the US on criminal copyright violation and racketeering charges.

In a recently released decision, it has been ruled that Kim Dotcom cannot be extradited to the US on copyright infringement charges. Dotcom’s legal team had argued that there are no equivalent criminal sanctions for copyright infringement in New Zealand that would activate the extradition treaty with the US.

Instead, it was ruled that Dotcom can be extradited on grounds of conspiracy to commit fraud, which is an extraditable offence under section 24 of the Extradition Act 1999. Dotcom and his legal team immediately criticized the decision, stating that “The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that copyright charges can't be fraud charges. Let's just ignore that minor detail over here in New Zealand.”  Image portal gda https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

The saga is not at its end, and further updates should be available in the upcoming months.

Piracy filters for ISPs – web blocking

The contentious issue of the blocking of pirating sites by ISPs has been reported on this blog previously here, here and here.

The Recording Industry Association of American (“RIAA”), along with 14 other groups of rightsholders have now expressed its dissatisfaction with the current DMCA takedown regime and is advocating for ISPs to directly filter out pirated content in comments filed with the US Copyright Office. It argues, inter alia, that “the notice and takedown system as currently configured results in an endless game of whack-a-mole, with infringing content that is removed from a site one moment reposted to the same site and other sites moments later, to be repeated ad infinitem.”

Google responded to the RIAA’s comments, principally pointing out the 99% of links it was asked to remove in January of this year “were not in our search index in the first place.”

These comments to the US Copyright Office are being made within the context of a review of US Copyright laws which is taking place at the moment.

Search engines potentially to be forced to delist piracy sites in Russia

A new copyright law has been proposed in Russia which would force search engines to delist piracy websites.

Sites that would potentially be blocked under the new law would be those that have been subject to a web-block injunction in the Russian courts, as well as piracy sites that have failed to respond to takedown requests by rightsholders.

Students to pay to play whilst learning music?

Conflict is brewing in Japan between The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (“JASRAC”) and The Association to Protect Music Education.

The domestic Copyright Law grants an exclusive “right of performance” to composers and lyricists to perform their copyrighted music. JASRAC is planning to introduce a policy charging copyright fees for performances of copyrighted music at music schools in January 2018. This policy would be to charge music schools 2.5% of the income generated from tuition fees for a fixed rate licence to perform copyrighted music.

JASRAC argues that it is unfair that music schools are not covered under this right. In contrast, The Association to Protect Music Education argues that performing music for instruction is not for the purpose of having people listen to it, and that copyright fees are already paid through payment for scores and other materials.

The Association to Protect Music Education is ready to take legal action in order to verify that no such financial obligation flows from the domestic Copyright Act.

This CopyKat by Tibbie McIntyre

The CopyKat - food for thought

Whilst (and for an unexplained reason) numerous blogs including Boing Boing and TechDirt focussed on a 2013 ruling in Germany that "Germany Says Taking Photos Of Food Infringes The Chef's Copyright", The CopyKat was more intersted in the ruling in the the Australian Federal Court which dismissed an interlocutory application by Seven Network (Operations) Limited (Seven) to restrain the Nine Network (Nine) and production company Endemol from continuing to broadcast the kitchen reality TV show, The Hotplate. Seven alleged that, by producing and broadcasting episodes of The Hotplate, Nine was infringing Seven’s copyright in its program, My Kitchen Rules (MKR) - its format wars again folks! Seven had argued that key elements of MKR sufficient to constitute a substantial part of one or more of the MKR literary works had been incorporated into The Hotplate and that Endemol had access tho the MKR production 'Bible'.  The Court dismissed the application, finding that  the balance of convenience of either granting or withholding the interlocutory relief weighed in Nine’s favour, not least as if The Hotplate were halted, it would be increasingly difficult to re-start as successfully at a later date. This means that the remainder of the first season of The Hotplate can continue to be broadcast (at least until the next hearing).  Justice Nicholas did find that Seven has a reasonably arguable case that the formats of MKR and The Hotplate are very similar and that this close similarity was (at least to some extent) the result of copying by Nine.  Sonia Borella and Sam Berry (Holding Redlich) have some useful observations here.

The Motion Picture Association Of America has dropped their somewhat controvesrial request for a preliminary injunction that would have required U.S. internet service providers to block access to the copyright infringing MovieTube we mentioned in our last (catscratching) post.

Paul Duffy, one of the attorneys behind the somewhat notorious copyright 'troll' Prenda Law, has died. His death was confirmed by the  Cook County Medical Examiner. The cause of death is still pending and could take up to three months to confirm. The Madison Recorder noted that Duffy died at a Chicago hospital. He was 55. . US District Judge Otis Wright had Prenda's practices referred to the Internal Revenue Service's criminal investigation unit and in August 2014, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld judicial sanctions against Duffy and fellow attorneys John Steele, and Paul Hansmeier for engaging in “abusive litigation” and failing to pay attorney's fees to defendant Anthony Smith in a porn-downloading lawsuit. ArtsTechnica also say that in June this year US District Judge David Herndon ruled that Steele and Duffy had "engaged in unreasonable, wilful obstruction of discovery in bad faith" in its case against Smith. Herndon ordered Duffy and Steele to pay for the defence's discovery costs.

The Chinese State Administration of Press & Publications, Radio, Film & Television (SAPPRFT) has announced a regulatory notice to control reality television programmes that are “vulgar and damaging to social ethics”. The notice does not give details of mechanisms that will be used to define or ban problematic programmes. The notice may affect licensing of programme formats and content from overseas, for both on- and off-line screening. More here (in Chinese). This from the IPO's excellent monthly China IP Newsletter.

Kim Dotcom has posted a recording of a phone call he had with some Universal Music executuves a few years ago in which the major label men –- at that point major foes of the MegaUpload founder and about to shut him down - discussed the possibility of participating in a new venture he was experimenting with at the time called Megakey. CMU Daily have an interesting update on this here. 

A Los Angeles federal judge has now scheduled the trial in a copyright-infringement case involving Led Zeppelin’s iconic rock anthem “Stairway to Heaven.” A lawsuit, filed last year in Philadelphia and subsequently transferred to Los Angeles, alleges that the guitar arpeggio opening of “Stairway,” released 44 years ago, was lifted from the 1968 instrumental “Taurus” by the long-defunct Los Angeles band Spirit who suppirted Led Zepplin on tour. The complaint was lodged on behalf of the estate of Spirit’s guitarist- songwriter Randy California, who drowned in 1997 off the coast of Hawaii. The trial is set to begin on May 10th.

And finally: So you're a farmer in rural America - the land of the free and the self reliant - and your John Deere 8520T tractor plays up - and needs a fix:  the problem is that it's all run by a computer and you can't actually do repairs as there's a digital lock on the software and only the autorised dealer can fix the tractor.  Tamper and you run the risk of a copyright infringement suit. Now farmers and mechanics are asking the Library of Congress' copyright office to review the law and make an exemption.  More here.

The CopyKat - choppy waters ahead for 'safe harbor' ?

New Zealand Judge Nevin Dawson has said that Kim Dotcom does not have secret assets or pose a flight risk, rejecting prosecutors’ plea to send him to jail or wear an electronic monitoring bracelet. Dotcom is fighting attempts by the U.S. to extradite him on criminal copyright charges over his involvement with the Megaupload platform. After a three day hearing Dawson did tighten Dotcom's bail conditions by ruling he can no longer travel by private helicopter or boat, and must report to police twice a week.

In the US, BMG and Round Hill Music have filed a lawsuit that might prove to be an important test case on the obligations, or otherwise, of internet service providers in the ongoing fight against piracy. According to the Wall Street Journal, the two music rights firms are suing Cox Communications, the third largest cable TV company in the US. The music companies say that Cox should be held liable for the copyright infringement of its file-sharing customers because it has failed to respond in any way to notices alerting the company to the actions of its infringing users as provided by BMG and Round Hill's representative agency - the somewhat controversial Rightscorp Inc (described by techdirt as a "struggling copyright trolling operation") - and is therefor outside of DMCA 'safe harbor' protection, particularly when it comes to 'repeat infringers'.  According to the WSJ, the legal complaint notes: "Cox has had ... knowledge of ... repeat infringement by its subscribers [via Rightscorp]. Nonetheless, Cox has repeatedly refused to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. The reason that Cox does not terminate these subscribers and account holders is obvious - it would cause Cox to lose revenue". Cox Communications was the one major player absent from the deal struck between the content owners and service providers back in 2011, the Copyright Alert System which did involved the likes of Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon. Cox has its own system. BMG and Round Hill are seeking damages for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement and a judicial order requiring Cox to "promptly forward plaintiffs' infringement notices to their subscribers."

Has UKIP got itself a Christmas present in the form of a copyright lawsuit ? Maybe, as it seems the British right wing anti-EU party has used a recent cartoon by political cartoonist Christian Adams as it's 2014 Christmas card - without permission. The cartoon UKIP seems to have purloined originally featured in the Telegraph newspaper, and features a cartoon of UKIP leader Nigel Farage driving a white van over the leaders of the three main party - in reference to the tweet by the now departed Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry MP that showed a white van in front of a house decorated with the flag of St George with the hashtag #Rochester. UKIP recently won the byelection in Rochester demolishing the Labour, Liberal and Conservative vote.  Asked on twitter why he hadn't put the UKIP card on his Facebook timeline - Adams himself tweeted that UKIP had a problem as they "DID NOT ASK PERMISSION"!  More here on the IBT and here. 

And finally, the  Electronic Frontier Foundation has released an opinion piece by Maira Sutton Copyright Law as a Tool for State Censorship of the Internet arguing "When state officials seek to censor online speech, they’re going to use the quickest and easiest method available. For many, copyright takedown notices do the trick. After years of lobbying and increasing pressure from content industries on policymakers and tech companies, sending copyright notices to take media offline is easier than ever" and going on to say "Now we're seeing a disturbing trend where governments and state-friendly agencies are abusing DMCA takedowns to silence political criticism." with an interesting and global list of alleged abuses of 'DMCA' takedown censorship from around the World. Worth a read and its all on the EFF website here.

The CopyKat - snippets of copy writes from around the globe

Russia’s State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, has approved a package of amendments to the anti-piracy law, which will cover video, books, music and software, but not photos.  Tass reports that rights’ owners can now demand suspension of Internet sources, which violate authors’ rights, for a period of court proceedings. Two couyrt defeats will lead to an closure of the offending website and the court will decide on a permanent blocking of a Web site. Among the amendments there is an initiative under which a Web site owner must delete during 24 hours any content, rather than limit access to it, upon an electronic request from a rights’ owner. “Our fundamental aim was to protect rights’ owners from professional pirates without creating serious problems for Web’s users, who may not be familiar with details of the law on authors’ rights and are authorized to use the whole content that is available,” Duma deputy speaker Sergey Zheleznyak said in his Facebook account.

The Turtles - happy again?

The Turtles, the 1960s pop band,  have  won a second victory against SiriusXM Holdings Inc. U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan rejected Sirius' request to dismiss the lawsuit accusing the satellite radio company of playing pre-1972 songs from the band, best known for the hit "Happy Together" without permission or paying royalties. She said that unless Sirius raises any factual issues requiring a trial by December 5th, she will rule outright for the plaintiff, Flo & Eddie Inc, a company controlled by founding Turtles members Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, and begin to assess damages. The Judge said "Of course, the conspicuous lack of any jurisprudential history confirms that not paying royalties for public performances of sound recordings was an accepted fact of life in the broadcasting industry for the last century. So does certain testimony cited by Sirius from record industry executives, artists and others, who argued vociferously before Congress that it was unfair for them to operate in an environment in which they were paid nothing when their sound recordings were publicly performed.... That they were paid no royalties was a matter of statutory exemption under federal law; that they demanded no royalties under the common law when their product as ineligible for federal copyright protection is, in many ways, inexplicable.  But acquiescence by participants in the recording industry in a status quo where recording artists and producers were not paid royalties while songwriters were does not show that they lacked an enforceable right under the common law - only that they failed to act on it  and Modern federal law supports the notion that an express carve-out is required in order to circumscribe the bundle of rights appurtenant to copyright.  More here and here. Digital Music News opines that based on Judge McMahon's comments  " Although the defendant in the case is a digital service, the ruling would appear to apply to any radio station, nightclub, or any other venue that plays recorded music in New York". So, traditionally free from paying royaties for recorded music in the USA  - is broadcast radio next???

Oracle's 2007 case against SAP, alleging that the latter’s Texas-based subsidiary TomorrowNow had illegally downloaded millions of copyrighted documents and programs from its customer connection website has finally bee settled. In 2010, a jury awarded Oracle $1.3 billion in damages based on the value of a hypothetical license that SAP should have negotiated for using Oracle’s copyrighted software. In response SAP filed a suit claiming that the amount should not be based on hypothetical licenses but on facts. In 2011, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton rejected the previous claim and settled the amount at $272 million.
Oracle then appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to revert the amount to the original $1.3 billion. The court considered Oracle’s appeal and agreed that the second amount was too low. However, earlier this year, Oracle was ordered to either accept $356.7 million or file for another claim and Oracle has now settled the case for $359 million ($356.7 million plus $2.5 million in interest). 


The Federal High Court in Lagos has thrown out a case brought before it by the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN) seeking to restrain the Copyright Society of Nigeria, Coson, from declaring that it is Nigeria’s sole collective management organization for musical works and sound recordings. Justice O.E. Abang ruled against the MCSN In its battle for legitimacy against Coson and the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC). In the suit, MCSN had asked the court to declare that Coson fraudulently misrepresented particulars of its membership to the NCC, which particulars the NCC relied upon to grant approval to Coson. MCSN asked the court to revoke the approval and to declare that the approval of Coson as a sole collective management organization deprived MCSN, its members, assignors and affiliates of their fundamental and constitutional rights to freedom of association, freedom to own and enjoy property in copyright and access to justice and as such is unconstitutional, null and void.   Suit No. FHC/L/CS/377/2013. More on the Premium Times here.

The Brisbane Times reports that websites that host or link to copyright infringing movies and TV shows could soon be blocked if the Australian cabinet approves a government submission to tackle online copyright infringement. It seems Attorney-General George Brandis and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull are canvassing a range of options put forward in response to their online copyright infringement discussion paper released in late July and intend to present cabinet with their own submission before Christmas. The ministers will likely recommend government put a requirement on internet service providers to forward letters about alleged copyright infringement from movie and TV studios to their customers. It's also likely they will recommend making it possible for rights holders to seek an injunction in court to require multiple internet providers block websites hosting infringing content.

In New Zealand MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom is facing a number of new temporary conditions to his bail over allegatiuons of multile breaches of previous conditions an an assessment that he may be a 'flight risk' Dotcom's full extradition hearing to the US on criminal copyright charges has been long long delayed - it's nearly three years since his controversial file-transfer business was shut down by the US authorities - and this will be subject to further delays after Dotcom's US lawyer confirmed that he and co-defendat Finn Batato had lost their legal team with New Zealand law firm Simpson Grierson and barrister Paul Davison QC withdrawing from the case. The new restrictions on Dotcom imposed by Judge Nevin Dawson in the Auckland District Court bans Dotcom from travelling more than 80km from his home, and from using helicopters or boats and he must hreport to police on a daily basis. Reports say that prosecutors have  called for Dotcom to be jailed again pending extradition, a proposal that will be considered by a judge next week.

And finally from China comes news that the Government is planning to create 3 Special IP Courts in Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai, where, according to a new update on the IPKat, the majority of Chinese IP cases are filed.  This is ostensibly to handle the growing backlog of cases in these jurisdictions and to address the special technical requirements and intricacies of IP cases. The new IP courts would be trial as well as appeal courts and it seems the Beijing IP court may focus more on administrative cases, while the other twocourts would  focus predominantly on civil infringement cases

The CopyKat - more on that black macaque

The Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council has circulated the "Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China (Draft Revision for Review) (the Draft Revision)" for public comments. The proposed changes include (a) new provisions for private agreements for the ownership of copyrights - in particular between employer and employee (b) new provisions to govern the administration and regulation of  collection societies and (c) new provisions that would move China on from calculating damages based on the  actual loss suffered by the right holder to a more flexible system that would include 'account for profit' and/or fixed damages up to RMB 1 million. More here. 

Bulbasaur

Nintendo has pulled the plug (at least for now) on Claudia Ng who created a Pokémon-themed 'Bulbasaur' planter, originally for a friend. Ng also placed this design on Shapeways, a 3D printing platform - and this proved to be extremely popular: But Shapeways have now received a cease and desist from Pokémon International for infringement, and the planter has (currently) been removed. More here.

A very angry sounding BoingBoing says this : "Rightscorp, the extortion-based startup whose business-model is blackmailing Internet users over unproven accusations of infringement, made record revenues last quarter, thanks to cowardly ISPs who agreed to lock 75,000 users out of the Web until they sent Rightscorp $20-$500 in protection money. Now the company plans to expand the program to all the major ISPs in America (thanks to cable company fuckery, this is a very short list). They have deals to threaten people on behalf of BMG, "plus artists belonging to the Royalty Network such as Beyonce, Calvin Harris and Kanye West." They demand $20 per alleged (and unproven) offense, and say that they're closing cases everyday for $300, $400, $500."

The BoingBoing headline Copyright extortion startup wants to hijack your browser until you pay reminded me of an amusing app developed by "Frustrated-mother-turned-evil-genius" Sharon Standifird called Ignore No More, an Android app that gives parents the ability to lock their kid’s smartphone from afar if they refuse to take their calls or call Mum or Dad back - making it unwise to ignore calls as all the hapless teen can then do is make calls to 911, with the app's website explaining “When you lock your child’s phone with Ignore No More your child has only two options – he or she can call you back, or call for an emergency responder”

Kim Dotcom, the boss of MegaUpload, who is currently fighting extradition to the USA on criminal charges related to copyright infringement, will not now be getting his assets back. An appeals court has now overturned an earlier decision by New Zealand's High Court. Dotcom's assets were seized after MegaUpload was taken off line in January 2012. The orders granting the seizures, issued by a US court and approved vy the court in New Zealand, expired in April and an application to extend them was turned down by the High Court.

Rep. Robert Goodlatte has confimed that the current review of US copyright law by the House Judiciary Committe will continue Into 2015 and education and circumvention will be the next issues examined, More here http://www.bna.com/copyright-review-process-n17179894026/

This could be expensive: The BBC reports that one of Colombian pop star Shakira's big hits has been found to be indirectly copied from another songwriter's work. Judge Alvin Hellerstein  in New York has found that Shakira's 2010 Spanish-language version of Loca had infringed on a song by Dominican singer Ramon Arias Vazquez. The Spanish language version. Shakira's missive,  a collaboration with Dominican rapper Eduard Edwin Bello Pou, better known as El Cata - was widely released as a single around the world and borrowed from  Loca Con Su Tiguer - but that song was itself was based on the Arias Vazquez track of the same name.  Loca went on to sell more than five million copies and topped Billboard Magazine's Latin charts. Her English language version of Loca - which featured Dizzee Rascal - was "not offered into evidence" at the trial. In his ruling Judge Hellerstein said that while the hit single had been based on an earlier version of a song recorded by Bello [El Cata], this itself was a copy of Arias Vazquez's song saying "Accordingly, I find that, since Bello had copied Arias, whoever wrote Shakira's version of the song also indirectly copied Arias". Bello had denied outright the allegations made against him, claiming 'Loca Con Su Tiguera' was his song. Judge Hellerstein decided against his role as a writer, partly because of the existence of a cassette of the song in Arias's hands from 1998, and partly because of inconsistencies in Bello's story both inside and outside of court. The Shakira and Arias songs were sufficiently similar for there to be copyright infringement in a case brought by Mayimba Music who had acquired the rights in Arias' song, and it was that firm which sued various Shakira's record label,  Sony, and associated companies involved in the hit. Image (c) 2009 Glastonbury Festivals Ltd. 

Face without a face - Maya Hayuk

On a similar theme: a joke article and YouTube video by Chilean website Rata  comparing portions of Tame Impala's 2012 song 'Feels Like We Only Go Backwards' and Argentine songwriter Pablo Ruiz 1989 hit 'Océano' which wentn viral has prompted a claim by Ruiz that "Obviously there is plagiarism. Whether they have done it on purpose or not, there are seven bars that are equal to my song".

The artist Maya Hayuk is suing pop star Sara Bareilles, her record labels Epic Records and Sony Music and  the luxury brand Coach for using her 2014 Lower East Side mural Chem Trails NYC -  as the backdrop for advertisements and promotional materials without her permission, The lawsuit, filed in a Manhattan Federal Court, alleges that Bareille used photos and video shot in front of Hayuk’s colorful, geometric mural to promote her recent “Little Black Dress” concert tour and album The Blessed Unrest. It seems Coach used the public artwork as a backdrop for images used to sell its upmarket clothes and bags online without Hayuk’s permission. She is seeking $150,000 each from Coach and Bareilles.

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc has reached a settlement with Complex Systems allowing it to continue using a key piece of software in its trade finance business. A U.S. court had perviously had prevented the bank from using the software after a claim for infringement was brought by Complex. 

And finally ...... back to that Black Macaque: The U.S. Copyright Office addresses the dispute in the latest draft of its “Compendium Of U.S. Copyright Office Practices”, which was published on August 19th. The previous compendium stated that “Materials produced solely by nature, by plants, or by animals are not copyrightable.” The new 1,222-page report again makes their stance on animal artwork clear by referring specifically to photographs taken monkeys (and other species of course). “[T]he Office will refuse to register a claim if it determines that a human being did not create the work.” And the Report gives more clarity: Did you know (?) that the Office will not register
-  a work purportedly created by divine or supernatural beings.
-  a musical work created by solely by an animal such as a bird song or whale song. 
-  a musical composition created solely by a computer algorithm.
-  dances performed or intended to be performed by animals, machines, or other animate or inanimate objects
-  pantomimes performed by animals, robots, machines, or any other animate or inanimate object  [for more see chapter 300]. 

Do you disagree with the U.S. Copyrght Office?  You can have your own say - dont forget to vote in our side bar poll!

The CopyKat - on World Book and Copyright Day

Tom Lehrer in 1960

A fascinating post on TechDirt on the refreshing attitude to copyright from Tom Lehrer,  the American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician, best known for the pithy, humorous songs he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s. In particular the article looks at what would happen to fan sites after he died. Tom's position on copyright after his death? "Well, I don’t need to make money after I’m dead" and on being asked if he would establish a foundation or charity or something similar before he died to look after his legacy he replied "No, I won’t. They’re mostly rip-offs." He's the man! However, and as one comment says,  the problem for the fan sites is that Tom won't be in control of his copyright after he dies ...

MegaUpload boss Kim Dotcom has secured an important victory in New Zealand with news that personal assets seized by the New Zealand authorities when Dotcom's home was raided amidst the US-led action against MegaUpload in 2012 could be returned to him within the next two weeks. The Auckland High Court has decided not to extend an order to allow police to retain the items. IF no appeal is lodged, Dotcom will be be entitled to the return of personal property, several cars and around $10 million in cash early next month. Dotcom tweeted yesterday: "Breaking News: High Court ruling just now. Mona and I are getting our New Zealand assets back, unless the Crown appeals. The NZ asset ruling is HUGE. We've just filed a case in Hong Kong against unlawful seizure of MegaUpload. The US case is falling apart! Our assets were seized for 800 days and still I was able to fight back even with my hands tied behind my back. Imagine what I can do now!" Dotcom is still facing extradition proceedings to send him to the US to face criminal charges resulting from his previous MegaUpload activities.

South Korea, China, Russia and Mongolia have held four-way talks on copyright law and intellectual property, strengthening their cooperation on patents, trade secrets and trademarks. The workshop saw policymakers and academics from the four nations discuss progress on copyright protection in each country and ways to improve bilateral and multilateral cooperation. The workshop was jointly organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Korea Copyrights Commission. 

The major record labels are now suing Pandora for exploiting sound recordings made prior to Feb. 15, 1972. Last September, a similar lawsuit was filed against Sirius XM. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) explains that the claim arises as sound recordings didn't begin falling under federal copyright protection until 1972 and therefore the streaming service might not be able to rely upon blanket licences from SoundExchange, the performance rights organization that collects digital and satellite royalties on the behalf of sound recording copyright owners. The record labels are testing this belief, now asserting New York state misappropriation claims over older music being streaming on Pandora saying "Pandora's refusal to pay Plaintiffs for its use of [Pre-72] recordings is fundamentally unfair" and the companies say in their complaint "Pandora's conduct also is unfair to the recording artists and musicians whose performances are embodied in Pre-72 Recordings, but who do not get paid for Pandora's exploitation of Pre-72 Recordings."  

Maori warriors perform a Haka by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

Back to New Zealand: Radio New Zealand tells is that the Ngati Toa tribe is to campaign for copyright legislation to cover its tribal haka, Ka Mate. The Government has already created a law to ensure commercial users credit the composer, Te Rauparaha. But Ngati Toa chair Taku Parai said his tribe has been pushing for stronger legislation. He said negotiators attempted to secure a copyright law as part of a Treaty settlement - and will try again in five years time.

And finally it seems April 23rd is World Book and Copyright Day. 23 April is a symbolic date for world literature. It is on this date in 1616 that Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors, such as Maurice Druon, Haldor K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo. The day celebrates the contribution of books and authors to our global culture and the connection between copyright and books. World Book and Copyright Day 2014 theme is "History and Stories".

The Blind Ostrich Head In The Sand Protocol

Here are two questions for our esteemed readers, and if anyone is minded to respond, answers, on a postcard please, to our comments section on this Blog. 

Question one is this:

Is Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz an anagram of 'Blind Zombie Ostrich'.

Why do I ask? Well, before move onto question two, we need to look at some background. Schmitz is the large framed MegaUpload boss currently living in New Zealand hoping to avoid extradition to the United States on copyright infringement charges (along with charges of money laundering). He is fighting the extradition.

Now Schmitz, and his business partner Mathias Ortmann, have been talking to Wired about their plans for a new file-transfer platform to replace MegaUpload. In a blinding flash of inspiration, the new file transfer platform is just called 'Mega' and here's the really 'clever' bit - it will include new technology that will automatically encrypt any file a user uploads to the system - and that user will be given a unique key code for each file uploaded, and only someone with that code will be able to access the content that has been stored on the Mega server. 

So - no one at Mega can see the file or its contents. Brilliant! Its a real 'mere conduit' - Mega really will just be the postman - they can't look at the files being transferred or swapped because they have all been locked in bomb proof boxes (provided by Mega of course) and only the users have the keys (errrm, provided by Mega).  Probably. Ortmann is of the learned opinion that the encryption will protect the Mega's business from any liability for copyright infringement, contributory or otherwise, because there is no way their platform could know what is stored and swapped on its service and (multi jurisdictional servers) and it would be entirely the liability of users if, say, they were swapping or distributing unlicensed music or movie files. Really? A real 'safe harbour' ? A bona fide DCMA "get out of jail free" card? 

So Question Two is this: Is the Blind Zombie Ostrich plan just the best business plan you have ever read? And does it defeat any qualms rights owners and the content industries might have about the service set up by Mssrs Dotcom and Ortmann?  Will it soar like a golden eagle? Or is it just another turkey? Or are we in cloud cloud cuckoo land (excuse the digi-pun)? Or is it al a bit bird brained? 

Over to you! And the answer to question one is NO!

More on MegaBox - another of Mr Dotcom's new ideas here

In other news, The Pirate Bay have announced that they will be moving their entire operation to the cloud, one can only presume to be free of those annoying raids by local law enforcement agencies who seize servers. Mega will have servers in at least two separate countries to maintain a continuity of service, in case one country's legal system goes 'completely berserk'. 

http://torrentfreak.com/new-megaupload-will-deflect-copyright-liability-and-become-raid-proof-121018/

My thanks to the ever wonderful CMU Daily for alerting me to this whacky wheeze.

Doubts creep up in MegaUpload case

With MegaUpload boss Kim "Dotcom" Schmitz having been refused bail for the second time, there is a never ending stream of comments on the rights and wrongs of the case online. But one of the more intersting article (kindly passed on to the 1709 Blog by our friend Andy Johnstone) is on the Register and says that "The Stanford Law Schools Center for Internet and Society has added a voice to the growing number of lawyers that expect America’s charges against Kim Dotcom and the “Megaupload conspiracy” to collapse in court" suggesting that there may be some confusion between the appropriate civil and criminal law codes - and standards of proof and 'guilt' that might apply to Schmitz and his fellow defendants. Anyway, you can take a look yourself here and its an interesting read.

In potentially related news, it seems that the BitTorrent search engine BTjunkie has shut down voluntarily in the wake of the MegaUpload takedown and arrests, and the confirmation of the Pirate Bay convictions by the Supreme Court of Sweden, with the sites operators saying "This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we've decided to voluntarily shut down. We've been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it's time to move on. It's been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!".

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/6795