Angry Birds is really angry! Russian e-commerce platform Wildberries is sued

On April 23, Rovio Entertainment, the Finnish copyright holder of the online game "Angry Birds" that was once popular all over the world, sued the Russian e-commerce platform Wildberries (hereinafter referred to as WB) in the Moscow City Court.

The copyright owner accused third-party sellers on the WB platform of infringing their intellectual property rights by using the bird images from the Angry Birds game in the products they sold. The products involved included tea cups, beer mugs, shoe accessories, etc. The sellers involved included Drabs, Cool Podarok and Jibzzzz.

In fact, on the 12th of this month, the Moscow City Court ordered WB to restrict access to the links to the products involved in accordance with Rovio's request. However, as of April 23, these links were still accessible. It was not until the afternoon of the 25th that the relevant links were removed.

According to reports, these infringements have caused Rovio to lose at least 80 million rubles each year. In addition to the copyright holders, other authorized brands have also suffered. Megalicense Entertainment estimates that authorized brands have lost up to 30% of their revenue due to counterfeit goods.

Roman Lukyanov, the plaintiff's lawyer, stressed that if the copyright holder wins the lawsuit and WB continues to infringe, the copyright holder will be able to request the closure of the website. However, the copyright holder does not have such an idea, and its main purpose is to combat counterfeit products.

Therefore, Rovio asked WB to pay it 60,000 rubles in compensation and ban the sale of the products in question.

However, Wildberries believes that it is the sellers, not the platform, that are infringing, and said that the copyright holders can contact the sellers to resolve the claims.

The plaintiff's lawyer said no case was filed against the sellers because the plaintiff "did not have their details".

Anatoly Semenov, deputy chairman of the RSPP Intellectual Property Committee, explained that under Russian law, both sellers and WB are responsible for infringements. At the same time, he said it is unlikely that the Moscow City Court will shut down the WB website.

Zakhar Nazarenko, CEO of Megalicense Entertainment, believes that if the practice of holding platforms responsible for counterfeit goods becomes common, platforms should set up special departments to handle claims from copyright holders and monitor branded goods.

The editor reminds all sellers that infringement should not be allowed to happen, and all sellers must stick to the bottom line.

Russia