Pesnyary to sue owner of www.pesnyary.com?
The administration of the band does not like negative comments on the forums. The owner has refused to delete them.
The administration of Pesnyary is threatening to sue him for stealing their intellectual property, owner of the website www.pesnyary.com Fyodar Kavalenka told Euroradio:
“It is like in Krylov's fable: you are to blame for my hunger," Fydoar Kavalenka said. "They do not like the comments people are writing about them on the forums, they want to control this information. 11 years has passed and they have suddenly understood that the website is exploiting their trademark because there is the word "Pesnyary" in its name. They are threatening to sue me and are mentioning the President's Administration and other structures that will be involved in it."
There are three ways to settle the conflict: the website may be closed down, it may be given to the band or a combination of the two variants, Karalenka added.
The administration of Pesnyary say that they have not tried to threaten the owner of www.pesnyary.com. They have been turning a blind eye on the website visitors' words on the forums for a long time. But they are trying to protect the state brand "Pesnyary" now. That is why they want to sort it out.
“Imagine people visiting the forums in the official website of some product and writing that the product is bad," director of the band Syarhei Mayeuski explains. "Why should www.pesnyary.com allow it? They discuss everything including the band's clones there but not Pesnyary. It is not a fan site. We asked Fyodar to solve the problem somehow... to talk to the people leaving such comments and to delete them... We want to get rid of biased comments. Or he could give the website to us because we do not want to sue him."
However, the words "unofficial fan site" can be found right below the title of the website.
The headline of the website.
Fyodar Kavalenka thinks that their offer laughable. Ihar Luchanok sued him for free downloads of songs in 2004. Fyodar lost and wanted to close down the website. However, the community was against it.
“People used the forum for discussion. They were looking for old songs that had been lost," the owner of the website recalls. "That is why I removed my copyright and gave administrator rights to several people. In fact, I gave the forum to a group of regular users. It is a virtual fan club now."
Photo from pesnyary.by and Fyodar Kavalenka's Facebook, Euroradio's collage
