Dealer? Money on the table - you violate our copyright

Hello. My name is Taras, I am a private entrepreneur from Lviv, Ukraine. Today I have a sad story. But first things first.

Our store in the city center sells home textile products. It would seem - what makes the story about home textiles on Giktayms? And here's what: we are faced, it seems to us, with a new kind of "patent trolls."

Patent Attorney Saga

A week ago in our store was bought baby bedding with the image of the m / f "Masha and the Bear." It looks like a respectable man of about 50 told us that his granddaughter loves this cartoon very much and he would like to buy her this bed as a gift. Since this product is already well "stagnated", we were glad that we shoved "illiquid". As it turned out later, we started to rejoice too soon.
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A week after that purchase, a “letter of happiness” came to us. Masha’s buyer turned out to be a patent attorney, who is a representative of a Cyprus company that owns the copyright to Masha and the Bear. In his letter, he provided a scan of our receipt with a stamp (issued for his demand), a photograph of bed linen taken in our store before the purchase, and a whole lot more. In the letter, the patent attorney indicated that the purchase of goods produced the same hidden video recording of the fact of purchase , that we had grossly violated the copyrights of the company, that the goods we sell were counterfeit, we did not give the right to distribute , and in general we are villains . Also in the letter (as an example) a decision of the Kiev court a year ago was issued concerning the collection of compensation from one LLC (retailer) for copyright infringement when selling goods with an image of the Masha and the Bear (though not bed linen) in the amount of almost 100 000 UAH ($ 3710). And at the end of the letter - a proposal to tearfully repent of the deed amicably solve the issue before the court for compensation for the damage that we viciously inflicted on the copyright holder.

Prehistory

Since we are a small retail store, we do not conduct foreign economic activity, we buy all the goods from counterparties inside the country. As a rule, these are wholesalers who import goods from Turkey and China, customs clearance and resell already to us - retail stores.

Almost a year ago, we decided to slightly expand the range of children's products, and we ordered several units of children's bed linen from one of our counterparty. Among them - one copy was ordered and the ill-fated bed linen with the image of Masha Chinese production.

That is, once again - the goods were officially purchased from us by the counterparty, we received documents for it. The manufacturer of the goods is a Chinese company, the products of which we have been selling for years, their products are always of excellent quality and there have been no problems with their goods until today.

As for Masha and the Bear, then, as already mentioned, it was they who “did not go,” specifically, this 1 piece. product stood proudly on our shelves for several months. As is usually done in retail, if the product stagnates, a small discount is first set for it, then more, then another, and finally - the price is already lower than the cost price in order to simply “shove” it off balance and return at least some of the money spent. It happened here.

And a week ago, finally, a buyer came to us, who bought our “Masha” for 995 UAH (approximately $ 40). What happened then, you already know.

So who is guilty?

Many will think now - but what actually happened? It’s not just that they quibble so much, the copyrights were most likely violated! So the company-owner has the right to protect its copyright, albeit through third parties. So? Then listen - I totally agree with you! But the question is: why should retail be responsible for copyright infringement, and not, for example, the manufacturer? Or a wholesaler? When Apple proved in court that its rights were violated, Samsung paid for the damage, not the electronics stores.

And another thing: if the patent attorney really wanted to protect the rights of the copyright holder, why didn't he ask us / request to remove the goods? Provide documents for the goods? In the end, to demand to confiscate this product from us! Instead, the patent attorney himself, for his money, bought from us (in his opinion, a counterfeit) product, thereby in fact financially supporting those who, in his opinion, violate the rights of the copyright holder.

Where is the logic here?

And the usual logic is business, baby. The fact is that in the aforementioned court decision, which the patent agent scares us, the amount of compensation was calculated not on the basis of the amount of damage, but on the basis of the fact of copyright infringement . That is, if you sell matches with Masha's images for 10 kopecks, you risk for each such fact of selling a product to fly a full spool. I am not strong in jurisprudence, but, as far as I know, the maximum amount of monetary claims against us can be from 32 000 UAH. ($ 1190) to 320 000 UAH. ($ 11900). For you to understand, such a sum now is the end of our business (we are already barely afloat anyway). I’m even afraid to imagine that our business, which we have been building for so many years, can be destroyed because of $ 40 bed linen with a picture of Masha and the Bear.

What's next?

If this text is read by retailers, my advice is not to sell products with characters from famous cartoons and movies. Even if your counterparty assures you that the manufacturer has all the rights to manufacture. After all, someone in this chain may lie (both the manufacturer and the wholesalers), and you will go to court. Moreover, unlike medium and large enterprises, you do not have a staff of lawyers and you can hardly afford high-quality legal protection in court, which increases the chances of your loss.

As for us, we look at the situation as follows. We did not produce goods and did not deliver them to the country. We have an invoice for the purchase of this product from our counterparties. We would not ignore anyone and would assist if we received a claim from the copyright holder. So we will not offer any compensation to the patent attorney. All we have to do is wait for the subpoena. We do not even doubt that it will be - the patent attorney needs to recoup the spent 40 dollars to buy goods and earn more.

Update
Since there are a lot of questions in the comments, I want to clarify. On the product we sold, there was neither the Masha and the Bear logo, nor the name Masha and the Bear. The logo and the name were actually factory-manufacturer. That is, once again - the brand on the product was not “Masha and the Bear”, but the TM from the manufacturing factory. In the product was used the image from the cartoon and only.