05.05.2021

The Kalininsky District Court of St. Petersburg awarded Dmitry Miklouho-Maclay, known under the pseudonym Dmitry Orekhov, compensation for using his parody play Bluff.

In 2018, Orekhov learned that Peter Production LLC was staging the play Bluff, which, as he believed, was based on his play. At the same time, he did not give permission to use the text.

By the time the case was considered, the controversial play had already been shown eight times at various theater venues in St. Petersburg.

In this regard, Orekhov asked to recover from the defendants compensation for violation of exclusive rights in the amount of 500 thousand rubles. and 100 thousand rubles. compensation for moral damage.

In support of the claim, the author provided a notarized script from 2017, as well as announcements and videos that confirm the staging.

Peter Production referred to the script by Lyudmila Nikitina, not Orekhov’s text. She provided the text of her play in the case file.

Orekhov saw plagiarism in him, and the court ordered an examination. The findings confirmed that the characters, dialogues, and scenes in this script were drawn from Orekhov’s work.

The court ruled to collect from the defendants jointly and severally 200 thousand rubles compensation for copyright infringement, 100 thousand rubles compensation for non-pecuniary damage, as well as expenses for examination, state duty, and the services of a representative in the amount of 63 thousand rubles ($4.9 thousand in total).