Soyuzmultfilm filed a lawsuit against the Kazan Philharmonic for the illegal use of Cheburashka and Gena the Crocodile

The Arbitration Court of the Republic of Tatarstan has registered a statement of claim from three legal entities: Soyuzmultfilm Studio JSC (Moscow), Soyuzmultfilm LLC (Moscow) and Soyuzmultfilm Studio JSC (Nizhny Novgorod) against the Kazan City Philharmonic Municipal cultural institution. The plaintiffs demand to recover 200 thousand rubles from the defendant. The reason for the lawsuit was the use of images of the characters "Cheburashka" and "Gena the Crocodile" on the Philharmonic's website without the consent of the copyright holder.

Sergey Zuykov, patent attorney and managing partner of Zuykov and partners, believes that the chances of the Kazan Philharmonic winning this case are minimal. "If the Philharmonic used a famous Soviet cartoon character on its website, it will be extremely difficult to win this dispute," the expert explained. According to Mr. Zuykov, some confusion is caused by the fact that the plaintiff with the name Soyuzmultfilm was created only in 2021. "Probably, the rights to all the studio's cartoons or at least some of the exclusive rights were transferred to this legal entity," he noted. The patent attorney suggested that the Philharmonic might be able to challenge the ownership of the rights of this newly created plaintiff. He stressed that the file of arbitration courts contains about 8 thousand cases involving this film studio.

"Soyuzmultfilm regularly files lawsuits for the protection of rights, especially actively in the last few years. In most cases, the courts seek compensation in favor of Soyuzmultfilm, but in some cases they reduce the amount claimed. But in this case, the size of the stated requirements is small," the expert concluded.

Source: Kommersant