LEGO Takes Czech Pirate Party to Court Over Copyright and Trademark Infringement

LEGO has taken the Czech Pirate Party to court on copyright and trademark infringement charges over an animated promotional video produced by the Czech Pirate Party for their political campaign, featuring the LEGO plastic blocks.

The video in question shows two LEGO figurines representing “influential businessmen with government connections” throwing their money into a lake. They are interrupted by a pirate who scares the corrupt businessmen away and drains the lake of the corrupt fish.

LEGO representatives were not pleased that their product was used in such manner and they issued a takedown notice in August 2012, claiming copyright and trademark infringement. The Pirate Party refused to comply. As a result, LEGO sought a preliminary injunction against the party in October 2012 at a Prague court. The injunction was granted and the party was ordered to remove the video from their official campaign media. But LEGO had additional demands.

“First they want us to not use LEGO figurines in any of our activities. Second, they want us to apologize for using LEGO figurines without their permission and to state that we did not receive any financial support from LEGO for our campaign. Third, pay the costs of the court,” Mikulas Ferjencik, vice-president of the Czech Pirate Party, told TorrentFreak, noting “LEGO claims that we have damaged their reputation by linking LEGO and the Pirate Party.”

The party filed an appeal against the injunction, which is to be heard by the High Court in Prague.

Prepared by: Aleksandra Pavlovic

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Source: TorrentFreak — blog with the latest news on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing