For the first time in Russia, they were fined 300,000 rubles for stealing Rills's idea

A real estate expert shot a video on the topic “What to do after paying off your mortgage”, which received 11 million views. She then saw that another realtor had copied the idea and sued him. In May, the court of first instance compensated the author of the first video 300,000 rubles. The Court of Appeal upheld this decision in July. When determining its amount, the courts of two instances considered it right to take into account the plaintiff's expenses for marketing services (123,000 rubles per month for two months)

K&P.Group experts commented this is a high-profile case for Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Maxim Fedotov, a lawyer at K&P.Group's intellectual property practice, emphasized that legal protection is provided only to objects created through creative work.

The judicial acts in this case are essential for law enforcement practice, as they confirm that the length of an audiovisual work does not matter in establishing its novelty and originality.

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Anna Molchanova, Head of Intellectual Property Practice at K&P.Group, noted that in the modern world there are many stories about knights saving a beautiful maiden from a high tower guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. This is an idea that is not protected by copyright. But when all of these characters take on names and character traits, the action takes place in a world with its own name, living according to its own laws and orders, then this is form. And it is protected by copyright.

Anna Molchanova recalls that back in 2021, the Supreme Court indicated that “in order to resolve the issue of granting legal protection to an object, it is necessary to establish whether its author chose the product form in an original way, making a free and creative choice and modeling of the product in such a way as to reflect its personality, whether it is an original work, the result of intellectual creativity, due to the fact that through this form the author of the work expresses his creative abilities in an original way, doing free and a creative choice that reflects your personality.”

That is, a sign of creative contribution means reflecting one's own personality in the created object. The State provides legal protection for such originality.

Had the defendant taken the same topic but presented it in his own vision, such a claim would not have been satisfied. To avoid being accused of copying someone else's content, be original. If you need a specific form, ask the author of the original work for permission to revise his work.

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If a blogger does not create anything new, but makes money only from advertising by viewing copied works, he can be fined many times. And with each subsequent trial, the liability may increase, up to 5 million rubles per video. Because courts take into account the one-time or systematic nature when determining the amount of compensation.