Pokemon can battle in more then one way.
In 2017, Pokemon Company International had filed against Redbubble for copyright infringement in Australia. Pokemon claimed that Redbubble had infringed upon Pokémon’s copyright by profiting off of Pokemon’s various characters.
The case was sorted though the Federal Court of Australia. It was decided that Pokemon would be awarded A$1 in damages. It was judged that Redbubble had removed the Pokemon related content in a timely manner and there was little evidence that it had greatly profited from its actions. Based on the court’s decision, Pokemon has decided that they will appeal this decision.
The internet is a gray area when it comes to copyrights. Especially when it is difficult to enforce copyright laws over certain boarders. If this case was done in the US or EU then a notice would be sent to Redbubble and other similar sites. If Redbubble remove the copyrighted material quickly then they would be immune from legal action.
This type of law is called safe-harbour protections. It just so happen that Australian law doesn’t provide this type of protection for companies like Redbubble. That is why Pokemon decided to take legal actions through the Federal Court of Australia.
Below are some quotes from Redbubble’s in-house counsel.
“Such is the volume of content uploaded to our platform, it’s technically impossible and impracticable to determine if some content is infringing [copyright] or not.”
“Even if something looks like it might be infringing [copyright], unless the platform is put on notice that the relevant copyright holder considers that we are infringing [its rights], we’re not going to know what their approach to enforcement is likely to be.
“Some rights holders don’t enforce rights as much as others and, of course, some of those who upload content may have a licence to do so.”
It sounds like Pokemon is one of the few who are enforcing their copyright. If more comes from this then we will update.
Source: In The Black
