Is "Escape from the British Museum" an exhibition infringement?
The creator of the short play spoke out about "fighting counterfeiting", and the curator issued a statement
On April 6, a member of the creative team of the previously popular short drama "Escape from the British Museum" posted a message saying that fans have recently reported that there is an exhibition of "cultural relics" titled "Escape from the British Museum". and sell tickets. As the producer, @xiamiemeoh stated, “We have never granted any commercial authorization to any external parties, nor have we authorized this exhibition.” This topic quickly became a hot topic on Weibo, triggering discussion and attention among netizens.
The creator of the popular short drama is definitely not an excuse to make money
@ Summer Sister Oh said, "Since the release of the content of "Escape from the British Museum", many film and television media and text and picture publishing houses have wanted to obtain our authorization, but we have never given it because we do not want the content of works created for public welfare. It was used for commercial profit. The museum used our dialogue content as material for commercial exhibition without authorization, which is an infringement... We are very lucky that the work has a good spread and is loved by many people. The content is also It has lost its own fan audience, but this is definitely not an excuse to make money, and we don’t accept it.”
Another main creator of the short play "Jianbing Guozai" also said in the statement, "Because of this name, many people think it is an exhibition held by a museum, and many of our fans are rushing to our exhibition... Exhibitions in many places have not been accepted. It is an infringement to use our lines as commercial exhibition material without authorization."
The reporter searched on the ticketing platform and found that the exhibition is currently being held in many places in Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Guangzhou and is selling tickets. Some consumers gave negative reviews to this exhibition, thinking that this exhibition was "selling sheep over dogs" and displayed inferior imitations. "I queued for half an hour and finished watching it in less than five minutes."
Curator: The Internet expert infringed the rights of the short drama creator without permission
On the evening of the 6th, the curator of "Escape from the British Museum" issued a statement, saying that recently some Internet experts have used the content from the short play "Escape from the British Museum" to publish short videos without permission, and have not sought permission from the curator. Without the party's permission, the exhibition hall was positioned under the video without authorization. "This not only violated the relevant rights and interests of the short drama party, but also made the public mistakenly believe that our exhibition party maliciously infringed on the short drama party." In this regard, the exhibition party has The netizen who posted the relevant video in a private message requested that the video and text be deleted.
The full name of this exhibition is "When Will I Come Back? Escape from the British Museum". The exhibition reproduces the display of Chinese cultural relics in the British Museum at a 1:1 scale. The curator said that the ticket revenue from this exhibition will only be used for venue-related costs, and excess fees will be donated free of charge to public welfare organizations related to the protection and development of cultural relics. The exhibition has a Nanjing station and will be launched on May 1. Ticket prices include early bird tickets of 39.9 yuan, single tickets of 68 yuan, double tickets of 108 yuan, and triple tickets of 128 yuan.
In addition to the suspicion that the title of the exhibition may be based on the popularity of the short drama "Escape from the British Museum" and cause misunderstanding among consumers, netizens generally expressed their disapproval of the curator's explanation. Many netizens said that the ticket price is relatively high and they are all replicas. Regarding the content in the promotion copy that "restores China's cultural relics left in the UK one-to-one. There are nine themed spaces in the exhibition area. You can feel the charm of Chinese culture up close without going to the UK." Netizens said: "Pay money to see it." A century of humiliating history?" "It's not left behind, it's taken away!"
Lawyer’s statement: The use of this trademark and the hosting of this theme exhibition involve infringement
The trademark "Escape from the British Museum" has been registered by many parties before. Intellectual property information from Tianyancha shows that "Escape from the British Museum" has been applied for trademark registration by many parties. Applicants include Guizhou Jiushi Culture Co., Ltd. and Beijing Chaole Infinite Culture Communication Co., Ltd. Company and natural person Zhang. Trademark process information shows that currently, the status of the above-mentioned trademark applications is "awaiting rejection review" or "rejection notice issuance". The reporter noticed that the Douyin account "Escape from the British Museum" that released information about the exhibition was owned by Guizhou Jiushi Culture Co., Ltd.
Lawyer Wei Zeng of Beijing Gaopeng (Nanjing) Law Firm told reporters that registering and using the "Escape from the British Museum" trademark and holding exhibitions with the theme or logo of "Escape from the British Museum" or other activities that are attached to "Escape from the British Museum" The behavior of IP hotness is suspected of infringement.
Although trademark registration follows the first-to-file principle, prior rights should also be respected. From the perspective of copyright law, although "Escape from the British Museum" is just the name of the short play, due to the drama information behind the text and even the heavy historical elements and patriotic feelings, it cannot be ruled out that "Escape from the British Museum" only has seven short plays. The possibility of Chinese characters being recognized as written works. If the seven Chinese characters of "Escape from the British Museum" are recognized as literary works in a specific case, then the registration and use of "Escape from the British Museum" as a word trademark or as a prominent part of the trademark logo will be This constitutes infringement of the copyright owner of the short play "Escape from the British Museum".
From the perspective of trademark law, if the rights holder of the short play "Escape from the British Museum" does not register "Escape from the British Museum" as a trademark, "Escape from the British Museum" is likely to be deemed to have been trademarked in the short play. For sexual use, "Escape from the British Museum" should be protected as an unregistered trademark or even an unregistered well-known trademark.
From the perspective of the legislative intent of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, Article 6 of the Law is to prevent this operator from obtaining market advantages or trading opportunities that belong to other operators at no cost by prohibiting clinging and confusion. In this incident, the curator used "Escape from the British Museum" as the theme or an important part of the theme, which could easily lead visitors to mistakenly believe that there is some connection between the exhibition and the short play "Escape from the British Museum". This behavior of the curator not only reaped the commercial opportunities generated by the short play "Escape from the British Museum" at no cost, but may also have many negative impacts on the short play "Escape from the British Museum". It has been suspected of constituting clinging and clinging. Confusing acts of unfair competition.
Yangzi Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Shen Zhao and Zhang Nan