intellectual property | SGAE stalks bars and restaurants playing music on Facebook and Instagram
the Catering establishments They are increasingly active on social media. Being aware of the premium offer that Facebook or Instagram makes to promote your business, it is very common, for example in the case of those who organize Banquetswhich publishes pictures of carefully decorated tables, appetizers and main dishes, corners dedicated to desserts, or, depending on the type of celebration, of balloons or children’s decorations that shine in the halls.
But these images can turn against you. This is what happened to a restaurant I owe Commercial Court No. 3 of Pontevedra with seat in Vigoto pay €5,769 to the General Assembly of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) Copyrights for about thirty Events with musical entertainment Implemented in its facilities for more than three years. Among the main evidence taken into account by the judge, which contributed to the action by the plaintiff entity, were the publications made by the institution on social networks. WeddingAnd baptism also first communion held during that period.
This ruling is in order violation of Intellectual property rights, against which an appeal could have been filed, is one of those that the Vigo court has issued in recent months in connection with this type of lawsuit that has risen again after the stop of COVID. In this specific case, the organization and SGAE had a valid contract since 2007, but the entity took the restaurant to court because From May 2016 to December 2019 In his lawsuit, he stated that the venue stopped transmitting “events carried out through musical entertainment.”
Once the action was passed, the restaurant agreed in part, specifically to pay €1,680, by admitting to having celebrated ten weddings during the course of the litigation using the musical repertoire. But he denied the remaining events that were alleged, 25 others, which raised the debt to more than €5,700 that had been claimed.
intellectual property
33 procedures between January and April
After the hiatus in 2020 and 2021, these controversies are growing again in Vigo. There were 67 in 2022 and 33 so far this year.
Cases that usually end in conviction
With few exceptions, lawsuits promoted by SGAE almost always end in conviction.
See approved judge Celebrating the music of all banquets that claimed SGAE. Not only because of what the entity’s staff announced and because of the visit records provided, but also because Collect evidence online. “As stated in the lawsuit and in the accompanying documentary film, the events that the defendant held in his premises are publicized on the Internet on the Internet, on Facebook and on Instagram. There are references to him in forums and on the Internet relating to this matter, without public appeal, and without evidence to the contrary. , serving to distort the evidentiary value of such evidence held by the plaintiff & rdquor ; as stated in the judiciary. Accuracy.
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The information “extracted from the Internet”, the judge sums up, confirms “the possibility ” of what was mentioned by the employees of the plaintiff company. What contributed to the procedure, he concludes also, the evidence “A certain dynamic of the continuity of party celebration & rdquor; In the restaurant, which, to blame, where appropriate to view accountingthe Invoices and the financial model of transactions with third parties that were carried out during the period in which the lawsuit focused,” she chose to contribute to the partial documentation and biased business statement.
Televisions in the hotel
last camel More recent months issued by this court derived from SGAE lawsuits are equally damned. In one of them, a man from downtown was found guilty the hotel by Televisions are installed in approximately 60 rooms. The Foundation claimed that these TVs only allow reproduction Informative news programmes, and it is not an act of intellectual property, and in any case, it is not a business of “public communication.” The judge does not share this criterion because, based on the existing jurisprudence, even if the guests did not connect audio equipment or television while in the rooms, or even if They are absent most of the day, that “do not exonerate. ” The hotel has the obligation to pay for the concept of copyright.
Entity resumes post-COVID-breaking litigation offensive: Two lawsuits per week
In 2019 Vigo’s only specialized commercial court added nearly 80 lawsuits drafted by SGAE Against bars, restaurants, pubs, hotels or concert committees for reproducing protected music without paying fees. Over the next two years, these lawsuits subsided. After the outbreak of COVID, no new lawsuits filed by this company or other IPR companies have been received: In 2020 only four procedures were entered and in 2021 only three procedures were received. but This truce has already ended. In 2022, 67 applications were registered, and between January and April this year, 33 applications have already been registered, an average of two applications per week.
The onslaught of coronavirus times has by no means completely stopped, because in the midst of a health crisis SGAE has continued to file lawsuits to try and get it together across the board. Execution of the judgment Money from cases he’d already won that had firm judicial resolution, as well as induction Conciliation works or preliminary actions in order to obtain information for future litigation. What they cut short is filing new lawsuits, but that’s history now because the stats show how active the author community’s legal activism is again. In the vast majority of cases, the court agrees. He condemns institutions to pay Sharia. But in recent years, there have been three places from Vigo that have won the SGAE pulse: Small cafeteria on Zamora StreetAnd Canido Bar And Another Camposancos Foundation.
