If the SGAE gets tough when intellectual property rights are infringed, even in hairdressers, there is no one to cough at Warner Bros. A year and a half in prison has requested the American 'major' award for David Dalmau, creator together with his brother Custo of the Custo Barcelona clothing firm, for selling garments with the Tweety Bird print without authorization.
When, in 2005, the representatives of Warner Bros in Spain detected that clothes with drawings of the popular yellow bird were being sold in Custo Barcelona establishments, they sent a burofax to the company to communicate the express prohibition of reproducing the image of this character in its clothing. Custo denied showing the bird in his designs and vowed not to do so in the future, but continued to market garments with an all-too-similar canary image. In view of the events, the producer filed a complaint and, when the Civil Guard inspected one of the clothing stores, they seized 18 garments that reproduced the children's icon. Now, the head of court number 10 in Barcelona has decided to take David Dalmau (sole administrator of Tower SL, the company that manages the Custo Barcelona brand) and the designer Carmen G., author of the garments, to trial. He asks for 18 months in prison, a fine of 18,000 euros and compensation to be set in the sentence for Warner Bros, for a crime against intellectual and industrial property.
The Custo Barcelona brand, which is precisely very jealous of its intellectual property -it is one of the most pirated in Spain- and which less than a year ago threatened to sue the firm Desigual for considering that it imitated its products "systematically", alleges that at no time has he tried to copy the figure of the geeky little bird. The defense of the firm requests free acquittal for its clients, since it ensures that Carmen G.'s prints reproduce different animals, including birds and elephants, "interspersed with images of young girls, very characteristic of Custo Barcelona." They demand that, during the trial, an expert expert in designs be called to demonstrate the differences between Piolín and Carmen G's bird.
The private prosecution, which asks for the same penalties as the prosecutor, maintains that the "small modifications" of the drawing "did not prevent the consumer from identifying the print with the character Tweety."
