The Claimant, Mati Caspi, alleged that he is the owner of the rights to the Audio disc by the name of “Mati”, to an audio disc by the name “Mati Doll” (“Buba Mati”), as well as to a video cassette for children by the name of “Mati Doll” produced by Defendant No. 2, the company Accord Producers represented by our office.

On the assertion of Mati Caspi, the defendants marketed the artistic pieces of work, made gains from those without giving him any share in those. Conversely, Accord Producers (together with additional defendants), that they are full owners of the artistic pieces of work by virtue of an agreement signed by the parties in the year 1990, pursuant to which they undertook the claimant’s liabilities to his creditors.

The Court eventually dismissed Mati Caspi lawsuit, and established that there is much to be said in favor of the preliminary assertion made by the defendants as to the lack of good faith and on the abuse of court proceedings by the very act of bringing  the legal action about 15 years after the signature of the agreement, and long time after the bankruptcy proceedings in the matter of the claimant had come to an end, and after he had been released in the creditors’ composition from most of the debt owed to the defendants.

Likewise, the Court rejected Mati Caspi’s claim ownership of the original artistic piece of work. The original pieces of work, which are the “Master” cassettes, have no bearing upon and consequence for the right to the artistic work itself. This right of the creator is the right of the claimant (Mati Caspi). This is an abstract, intangible rights, which is pending and in abeyance forever. As for right of producer (Accord Producers), that entity which recorded the sound of the artistic piece of work in a cassette / disc, the copyright it created does not lie in the artistic piece of work itself but “in the material” of the finished product, as a tangible one-time right to that recording it. Hence, the Court dismissed the petition for a declaratory relief about the claimant being the owner of a copyright over the original pieces of works, those same “Master” cassettes produced by Accord Producers.  
The Court established that this production remains under the ownership of Accord Producers, and that the property rights to the piece of work (copyright) shall continue being held by the claimant.

The claimant, the manger of a tattoo parlor, filed a lawsuit against the defendants (Planet Tattoo and Alex Bodkov, who was represented by our office), which was concerned with her demand for compensation on account of infringement of copyrights in her artistic pieces of work – photographs of tattoos on the body of persons thus tattooed. Alex Bodkov, who worked at the claimant’s at the relevant times filed a counteraction against the claimants on account of a breach of his intellectual right to the photographs – in those cases where he did not, get credit on the Internet website of the claimant where the photographs were published.        

The Court entertained the lawsuit as well as the counterclaim, and determined that the photograph’s forming the object of the lawsuit are protected pieces of work, as the photograph reflects not only the artistic nature of the tattoo work, but also the relation between the body thus tattooed and the tattoo, as well as the harmony between the two.

The Court further established that the fact that, after several years of infringement, the defendant removed the infringing photographs from her Internet website – does not amount to releasing her from responsibility for said infringement.  The Court further laid down, that it would not be correct to determine that the infringement of copyrights in various pieces of work is equivalent, as regards the number of infringement of rights in one single piece of work.
Hence the Court entertained the counterclaim.