The Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region considered a case in which the copyright holder demanded compensation for the illegal use of reels, a short video posted on one of the social networks.

The plaintiff, the author of the video, stated that the defendant, illegally posted a similar video in which elements of the original work were reproduced – the structure, sequence of presentation of the material and its content, including text accompaniment.

It should be noted that this decision was not unexpected for lawyers working in the field of intellectual property. Many experts agreed that reels are still an audiovisual work, therefore copying it is a violation.

However, the users of the networks had expressed the opinion that the reels could not contain something unique. Moreover, with the help of reels, some new information was always posted, which then other users began to copy in pursuit of popularity and new subscribers. However, the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region obviously considered this approach to be wrong, because the reels, being an audiovisual work, and thus can be an object of copyright.

At the same time, as the representative of the plaintiff noted, it is not worth running to court now "if your idea was simply used and adapted". In their case, the reels were copied “from top to bottom”, which they were able to confirm in court, show the originality of the video, and also prove authorship by providing documents. However, according to the plaintiff's lawyer, they are not sure whether they would have taken up this case under other circumstances.

Therefore, it is necessary to first assess all the circumstances of the case, and then decide whether to go to court.

Author: Anastasia GERASIMOVA, TRADEMARK ATTORNEY, S&O EURASIA