Blogger Sues BT for Infringement of Copyright

Ini­tial­ly, Anton Motolko want­ed the BT to admit infringe­ment of his pro­pri­etary copy­right and demand­ed a moral dam­age com­pen­sa­tion of 20 mil­lion rubles. In the course of pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing, the blog­ger reduced the finan­cial part in the suit to one ruble. The blog­ger said that it was suf­fi­cient for him if the BT admit­ted the fact of vio­la­tion alone.

The pho­to of Polar shin­ing was tak­en in Belarus in 2015 and pub­lished in Anton Motolko’s web­site and blog. The BT showed two pho­tos of them with­out the con­sent of the author. Anton Motolko ini­tial­ly demand­ed 2.1 mil­lion as roy­al­ties for each pho­to. Also, he want­ed apolo­gies from the com­pa­ny, how­ev­er, the BT refused to apol­o­gize or to reach an ami­ca­ble agree­ment.

In the pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing, Anton Motolko said that he had been offend­ed by the con­no­ta­tion of the pro­gram in which his pho­tos had been demon­strat­ed: his pho­tos were used for pro­pa­gan­da of state sym­bol­ic. More­over, he was asked deri­sive ques­tions about why his pho­tos had appeared on the TV chan­nel, which caused him moral suf­fer­ing.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the BT Ali­ax­ei Zhylin­s­ki argued that only for the first time the chan­nel failed to name the author of the images, but they did it in the next issues of the pro­gram. He also argued that the TV has the right to use pho­tos from the Inter­net unless the copy­right hold­er for­bids it. In his turn, Anton Motolko pre­sent­ed screen­shots from his web­site that all mate­ri­als were pro­tect­ed by copy­right. The BT rep­re­sen­ta­tives did not view it as a ban to use them for free.

Ali­ax­ei Zhylin­s­ki argued that, accord­ing to the statute, the TV com­pa­ny is oblig­ed to cov­er impor­tant events in Belarus, includ­ing the state of the envi­ron­ment, to which the polar shin­ing belongs. And, the statute of the BT was approved by the edict of the Pres­i­dent, which stands above the copy­right law, said the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the chan­nel.

The judge assigned an exam­i­na­tion to find out if the pho­tos were an art­work and so pro­tect­ed by copy­right.