Blogger Fails in Copyright Suit against BT

The judge ruled that the pho­tos of Polar shin­ing tak­en by the blog­ger were not a result of cre­ativ­i­ty, so they were not pro­tect­ed by copy­right. BT rep­re­sen­ta­tives were absent from court when the judge’s deci­sion was announced.

The pho­to of Polar shin­ing was tak­en in Belarus in 2015 and pub­lished on Anton Motolko’s web­site and blog. The BT broad­cast two men­tioned pho­tos with­out the con­sent of the author. The blog­ger demand­ed apolo­gies from the com­pa­ny for breach of copy­right. Anton Motolko argued 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, the fact that his pho­tos had been used by the chan­nel caused him moral suf­fer­ing.

Ini­tial­ly, the plain­tiff demand­ed roy­al­ties and moral dam­age com­pen­sa­tion, but then said that apolo­gies alone would be enough.

The court appoint­ed an expert exam­i­na­tion which was car­ried out by Andrei Chupryn­s­ki, head of the Depart­ment of Cin­e­matog­ra­phy of the Belaru­sian Acad­e­my of Art. The expert con­clud­ed that the pho­tos were not cre­ative, and the expert con­clu­sion served as a basis for the judge’s deci­sion.

The blog­ger now has to pay for the expert exam­i­na­tion 89.40 BYN. The court deci­sion came into legal force and can­not be appealed against.

Blog­ger Sues BT for Infringe­ment of Copy­right