3 Count: Clubbed Penguin

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1: Three Arrests Over Unofficial Club Penguin Site

First off today, Joe Tidy at the BBC reports that the City of London Police have arrested three people and shuttered the website of a group that was running an unauthorized clone of Club Penguin, the Disney social media site/game that shuttered in 2017.

The move comes at the behest of Disney, who claimed that the site was infringing their copyright by operating the unauthorized clone. The site, dubbed Club Penguin Rewritten, was the largest of the various Club Penguin clones and purportedly had millions of players.

Another clone, Club Penguin Online, was the subject of a BBC investigation that found widespread vulgar, racist and sexual behavior on the site that was aimed largely at children. When that site shuttered, many of the players went to Club Penguin Rewritten. However, the operators of the site claimed to have not earned any money from its operation, instead putting revenue into maintaining the service.

2: Newsweek Settles Copyright Fight Over Instagram Embedding

Next up today, Blake Brittain at Reuters reports that Newsweek has settled a long-running lawsuit over them embedding an image from Instagram.

The lawsuit was filed by photographer Elliot McGucken, who claimed that Newsweek infringed his copyright by embedding an Instagram post of his on their site as part of a news article. The case was actively heading for a trial as both sides had their attempts to end the case early set aside.

The case was seen as one of the major challenges to the “server test”, which looks at where an image or piece of content is hosted, not how it appears on the final website. The court, in this case, rejected the test as well as Newsweek’s fair use arguments. However, with the case being settled, it is unclear what, if any, impact that will have moving forward. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.

3: Emily Ratajkowski Lawsuit Over Paparazzi Photo Settles

Finally today, Winston Cho at The Hollywood Reporter writes that Emily Ratajkowski has settled a case against a paparazzi photographer after she used his photo he took of her as part of her Instagram story.

The lawsuit was filed by photographer Robert O’Neil in 2019. He claimed that Ratajkowski violated his copyright by using his photo without permission. Ratajkowski, however, fought the lawsuit and claimed, among other arguments, that the photo didn’t qualify for copyright protection because it lacked “artistic merit”.

However, the two sides have opted to settle the case, though the terms of the settlement are not known.

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