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Category: Litigation

Scarlet v. Sabam case: background – the facts and the main proceedings

On 24 June 2004, the Société belge des auteurs compositeurs et éditeurs (SABAM) brought interlocutory proceedings pursuant to the Belgian Law of 30 June 1994 on copyright and related rights before the President of the tribunal de première instance de Bruxelles (Court of First Instance, Brussels) seeking an injunction against Scarlet Extended SA, an ISP.

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Some of ideal business schemes can damage the interests of copyright holders

Robertson founded MP3tunes in February 2005 and launched the website MP3tunes.com to sell independent artists’ songs in the mp3 file format. In the fall of 2005, MP3tunes added a storage service allowing users to store music files in personal online storage “lockers.” Songs uploaded to a user’s locker could be played and downloaded through any internet-enabled device. There are free lockers with limited storage space and premium lockers with expanded storage for a subscription fee.

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New technologies allow “to rent DVD” through the Internet

Group of entertainment companies sued owners of Zediva service. Why? They provide what they describe as a DVD “rental” service available at www.zediva.com. To operate this service, defendants have purchased hundreds of DVD players and installed them in cabinets at a data center they lease. They also have purchased copies of plaintiffs’ copyrighted works on DVD, and place those DVDs in their DVD players, with each DVD remaining in its respective DVD player while it is transmitted to service’ customers on multiple occasions.

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Collective management organisation v Social network

SABAM is a management company which represents authors, composers and publishers of musical works. On that basis, it is responsible for, inter alia, authorising the use by third parties of copyright-protected works of those authors, composers and publishers. Netlog runs an online social networking platform where every person who registers acquires a personal space known as a ‘profile’ which the user can complete himself and which becomes available globally.

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Collective management organisation v Internet Service Provider

SABAM is a management company which represents authors, composers and editors of musical works in authorising the use of their copyright-protected works by third parties. Scarlet is an internet service provider (“ISP”) which provides its customers with access to the internet without offering other services such as downloading or file sharing.

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The questions of jurisdiction on copyright infringement in USA

Elmo Shropshire, who also goes by a stage name of “Dr. Elmo,” is known for his performance of the song “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” (“Grandma song”). The copyright to the underlying musical composition of the song is co-owned by d/b/a Elmo Publishing and by Patricia Trigg, d/b/a Kris Publishing. Elmo Shropshire, plaintiff, alleges that in or about December 2007, Aubrey Canning posted a video on YouTube, which combined Christmas-related pictures with audio of a Canadian musical group, “The Irish Rovers”, singing the Grandma song.

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Adult films are also protectable in Internet

Liberty Media Holdings (“Liberty Media”) is the registered owner of the copyright to numerous adult films. It alleged that thirty-eight entities (collectively “Does 1- 38” ), identified only by their IP addresses, infringed upon its copyrighted motion picture, “Corbin Fisher Amateur College Men Down on the Farm” (the “Motion Picture”), by reproducing and widely distributing the Motion Picture over the Internet.

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How newspapers protect their copyright interests in a digital world?

Newspaper Licensing Agency (“NLA”) is a company formed to manage the intellectual property rights of its members by licensing, and collecting the licensing fees for, making copies of newspaper content and for these purposes has promulgated various licensing schemes. NLA was formed in 1995, primarily with a view to licensing press cuttings agencies to make copies of newspaper articles to send to their clients and to license the clients to make their own copies.

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