Copyright protection of a group of authors

In 1993, between co-authors Arutunova JM, SG Sahadze, Novikova GA and the publishing house "Nauka" was concluded the Contract on the publication of French-Russian dictionary "Language press." According to this Contract, the authors undertook to submit to the publisher edited and prepared to set the manuscript, as well as the exclusive world rights to the publication and distribution of Russian-French dictionary the “Language press” for a period of two years, with a circulation of not more than 25 000 copies.

At the same time, as a condition of the Contract was set mandatory consent of the authors on subsequent re-edition of the Dictionary.

In 1995, the specified dictionary was published with a circulation of 10 000 copies.

In 2012, the authors found that the dictionary with the same content was distributed through the web site "Ozon.ru", and the year of publication was set 2012, and the publisher of the Dictionary was the Publishing house “Nauka NOVOSIBIRSK”. However, the authors did not give consent to reissue of the Dictionary.

A request to the Russian book chamber of the Russian Federation allowed to establish that this publication was not registered and was counterfeit.

To provide evidence we have implemented control purchase of the Dictionary, and prepared a notarized Protocol inspection of the site www.ozon.ru.

The first suit was filed by the Publishing house "Nauka RAS" for illegal reissue of the Dictionary and its introduction into circulation without the consent of the authors, in violation of the terms of the Contract.

Proceedings in the court of first instance.

Representatives of the publishing house “Nauka” denied any involvement to republished work, claiming that they are the Federal state unitary enterprise with strict requirements to the reporting and quality of printed products. The organization submitted to the court its internal documents, where the controversial Dictionary 2012 did not appear.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs claimed that the burden of proving the innocence of the Publishing house to illegal reissue of the dictionary is on the defendant, the author must specify on the right of authorship and the fact of use of the work by the defendant.

while on the counterfeit copies Dictionary stated that it was engaged in the reissue "SCIENCE NOVOSIBIRSK" (a separate division of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Scientific and Academic Publishing, printing and production knigoraspredelitelny center of the Russian Academy of Sciences "Publisher" Science "), and therefore concluded that the illegal reprinting of proof.

The court of First instance ruled that partially satisfied the claim, reducing the amount of compensation for copyright infringement. The court pointed out that the internal documents of a legal entity cannot objectively indicate the lack of offense on their part, while on counterfeit copy of the Dictionary states that its reissue was engaged in "NAUKA NOVOSIBIRSK” (a separate subdivision of Federal state unitary enterprise "Academic scientific-publishing, production, printing and book distributing center of the Russian Academy of Sciences "Publishing house "Nauka"), and therefore concluded that the fact of illegal re-release was proved.

Appeal:

The legality and validity of the above Decision was confirmed by the Court of appeal.

Firm’s role - Yurbureau LLC led the entire project.