Ukrainian director Andriy Pryimachenko said that he had concluded an agreement with the HBO channel, which used his video work without permission in the first episode of the mini-series “Chernobyl” in 2019.
“The agreement with HBO has been concluded. As a result of the process in the District Court of the Southern District of New York, the parties reached an agreement. This is a significant precedent when it was possible to defend the copyright of a Ukrainian in a US court in a case with one of the largest American (and world) media companies. The details of the agreement cannot be disclosed, according to the terms of the agreement. From the very beginning of this case, more than 6 years ago, my goal was to restore justice,” Andriy Pryimachenko wrote on his Facebook profile.
This is a visualization of a telephone conversation on April 26, 1986, between the dispatcher of the central fire station and the dispatchers of the militarized fire department of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The Ukrainian created it based on the transcription of an audio recording of the telephone conversation, which can be found on the Internet with free access.
He published this video in 2013.
Pryimachenko turned to the director of “Chernobyl”, Craig Mazin, on Twitter with a proposal to start a dialogue. He pointed to important evidence that the video was copied – the same error in the transcription in two videos, when instead of “Nachsostav” on the screen, it says “Nash sostav”.
However, instead of Mazin, the studio’s lawyers provided an answer, stating that they were engaged in the visualization independently, and the authorship of the video belongs to them.
Pryimachenko stated that it would be enough for him to simply mention his authorship, without paying monetary compensation. However, this reaction from HBO and the studio’s lawyers forced the Ukrainian to start legal proceedings.