Famous Taiwanese comic artist awarded TWD3 million damages for plagiarism

　The famous Taiwanese comic artist, XIAO Yan-Zhong (“Xiao”) confronted plagiarism by JIA Zhao (“Jia”), who declared himself to be a marketing expert to adapt the comic characters of Xiao’s well-known comics series, “The Moment”, rearrange these characters into a new copywriting titled “The Mouse”, upload them onto a Facebook fan page called “Angel TALK Paris” (Chinese: Angel TALK法國軟麵包專賣店), and further make them the main characters of a series of collection cards for sale.  Xiao filed a lawsuit with the Taiwan IP Court to claim damages against Jia and was granted an award of damages in an amount of TWD3 million payable by Jia.  The owner of the said Facebook fan page should pay TWD300,000 out of the awarded TWD3 million damages.  In the criminal aspect of the same matter, Taiwan Tainan District Court ruled in the first instance that Jia should receive 8-month prison sentence for violating the Taiwan Copyright Act.  

　As the creator and copyright holder of the comics series, “The Moment”, Xiao had once held a solo exhibition of his series of works, “The Moment” in Beijing, China in August 2013.  However, without Xiao’s prior consent and due authorization, Jia made simply slight changes to the comic characters of Xiao’s “The Moment” by imitating these characters by computer mouth and also adapted Xiao’s text creations to rearrange them into a series of advertising materials, “The Mouse”, and post them to the said Facebook fan page together with Jia’s picture to lead viewers to believe that those drawings and texts are created by Jia himself.  Moreover, Jia’s plagiarism took another form of colorable napkins carrying these imitated comic characters to be distributed in a book store in Tainan, Taiwan for customers’ use, to be framed as picture for exhibition, and further printed as collection cards for sale at the price of TWD5,000 each.  Jia’s foregoing acts have constituted serious infringement.  

　Jia defended himself by saying that in his cooperation with Xiao in 2013, he had acquired Xiao’s consent to adapting and imitating his comic characters of “The Moment” and rearranging them into the series of “The Mouse” for marketing purpose.  Based on the foregoing reason, Jia requested for a dismissal of Xiao’s damages claim by arguing that the “The Mouse” is not the reproduction of Xiao’s works but the adaptation.

　Judge of the Taiwan IP Court rendered a civil judgment in favor of Xiao on the ground that Jia has never produced any evidence to prove the allegedly authorization from Xiao and that Jia had once created such posts on the said Facebook fan page as “I want extensive coverage of news, I want to be more popular…and I am a marketing professional” and “I have never denied my imitation of teacher Xiao” , which posts demonstrate Jia’s disregard for Copyright Act.  According to the IP civil judgment, the infringing works shall be all destroyed and the relevant posts on the said Facebook fan page shall be removed.  Also, the main text of the IP civil judgment shall be posted on the Facebook fan page.  This case is appealable.  (June 2018) 

/CCS