Penza, 3 July 2016. PenzaNews. A renown Russian blogger Ilya Varlamov intends to sue the advertising agency “Express” for 420,000 rubles of compensation for illegally publishing 20 blogger’s photos on the news website “Penza-Express,” committing a breach of copyright.

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The Penza region Arbitration Court received the lawsuit request on 31 May 2016.

According to the case materials available to PenzaNews, the photos in question were taken by Ilya Varlamov during his visit to Penza in May 2015 as a dedicated guest of Jazz May festival.

After his visit, the renown Russian blogger, who was writing in LiveJournal under the nickname Zyalt back then, published a series of posts with his impressions, such as “Bad Penza” on May 19, “Good Penza” on the day after, and “Rubber Items” on May 23.

Each post was accompanied by a large assortment of photos depicting central streets and yards of Penza, modern and historical buildings, landmarks in need of renovation, and people in the city.

A representative of the defendant did not agree with the claims. In particular, they stated that “the complainant’s blog […] was quoted by the Penza media source, credited as the author of the photo with a hyperlink,” while “the articles with photographs illustrating them were produced for information purposes and in a reasonable quoting amount.”

Moreover, the representative suggested to reduce the amount of compensation to 110,000 rubles.

The court session on the case will be held on July 26.

As PenzaNews reported earlier, Alexander Tuzov addressed another lawsuit against the advertising agency “Express” in mid-February 2016 for a compensation of 1,023,000 rubles for illegal use of 31 photos of the Russian musical band DDT and its lead Yuri Schevchuk.

On 12 April 2016, judge Nataliya Guk, who will be also working with Ilya Varlamov’s lawsuit, stated to dismiss Alexander Tuzov’s case and issue a certificate confirming the decision. According to the judge’s verdict, the complainant took the photos “for personal purposes unrelated to business.”

Based on the available information, Alexander Tuzov intended to continue pursuing his interests as an individual in the civil court; however, no such action has been taken by him so far.

In the meantime, on 15 June 2016, Alexander Tuzov lost a lawsuit initiated by “VolgaInterMedia” – the founding body of PenzaNews – and was ordered by the court to pay 265,000 rubles of compensation for illegal use of copyrighted photos.

It took a total of 5 months and two days to bring the Tuzov’s case to a conclusion. In addition, there is a possibility that the complainant in the case will be appealing the verdict in the nearest future.