Mercis owns the commercial rights with respect to our well-known Miffy, designed by the late Dick Bruna. Recently Mercis noticed that the internet forum Punt.nl had placed a number of drawings that look much like the real Miffy drawings. Miffy as a DJ on a dance event, very much stoned with marihuana or stiff of a 'line'. The Amsterdamse summary proceedings judge held in her judgment of 22 december 2009 that Mercis cannot stop most of these drawings. In total seven pictures were alleged to infringe on the Miffy copyrights and trademark rights. Reason for allowing five of the pictures on a user generated content website was the following. The Miffy target group, consisting of small kids, will not be confused, as the kids will not visit the Punt.nl website. Moreover Miffy was depicted with big red eyes or a line of cocaine, so ‘sufficient distance’ from the original has been taken. 'Those who see the pictures from that site will understand that they do not origine from the trademark owners', the judge held. Five out of seven are seen as parodies on Dick Bruna's work. But the other two infringe on the Miffy trademarks, including ‘Nijn Eleven’, a drawing of Miffy flying towards a skyscraper. Those two look too much alike to be treated as parodies. In the law I do not see the requirement that the work must have been used in a sufficiently altered way to be seen as a paody under article 18b of the Copyright Act. In my view also a mere copy of a work could be a true parody as long as it is clearly distinguished as such. This is what the requirement that confusion must not be at stake is for. Maarten Haak
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Mercis owns the commercial rights with respect to our well-known Miffy, designed by the late Dick Bruna. Recently Mercis noticed that the internet forum Punt.nl had placed a number of drawings that look much like the real Miffy drawings. Miffy as a DJ on a dance event, very much stoned with marihuana or stiff of a 'line'. The Amsterdamse summary proceedings judge held in her judgment of 22 december 2009 that Mercis cannot stop most of these drawings. In total seven pictures were alleged to infringe on the Miffy copyrights and trademark rights. Reason for allowing five of the pictures on a user generated content website was the following. The Miffy target group, consisting of small kids, will not be confused, as the kids will not visit the Punt.nl website. Moreover Miffy was depicted with big red eyes or a line of cocaine, so ‘sufficient distance’ from the original has been taken. 'Those who see the pictures from that site will understand that they do not origine from the trademark owners', the judge held. Five out of seven are seen as parodies on Dick Bruna's work. But the other two infringe on the Miffy trademarks, including ‘Nijn Eleven’, a drawing of Miffy flying towards a skyscraper. Those two look too much alike to be treated as parodies. In the law I do not see the requirement that the work must have been used in a sufficiently altered way to be seen as a paody under article 18b of the Copyright Act. In my view also a mere copy of a work could be a true parody as long as it is clearly distinguished as such. This is what the requirement that confusion must not be at stake is for. Maarten Haak