Lawsuit Claims Theft Of ‘Hello Kitty’ Toons

COMMENTS (10)

• Hello, doghouse

  Comment by Pembroke — Friday August 3, 2012 @ 7:05pm PDT  Reply to this post

• What does Sanrio mean that they didn’t become aware of the infringement until 2011? What the hell do they think was making that annoying noise every hour demanding to be fed?

  Comment by Buddy Bing — Friday August 3, 2012 @ 8:20pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • …do you even know what company Sanrio is?

    Comment by Srsly — Monday August 6, 2012 @ 11:06am PDT  Reply to this post

• How can you sue an unknown party?

  Comment by Lev — Saturday August 4, 2012 @ 12:39am PDT  Reply to this post

• They know there’s was a problem 12 years old and it continued since but not known by whom?

  Really? “…deprive Sanrio Japan of their possession or use.” They took the only copies and kept them from Sanrio?

  This is odd,or something is lost in translation – sounds like a licensing deal gone bad or something.

  Comment by Herb Finn — Saturday August 4, 2012 @ 1:09am PDT  Reply to this post

• @Buddy – the statute of limitations has already run on the specific causes of action that the Plaintiffs have pled in their complaint. In theory, the statute could be “tolled” if the Plaintiffs weren’t aware of the facts giving rise to the allegations. Hence, the inclusion of the language. It’s a way to try to pursue a lawsuit that was filed too late.

  @Lev – Generally, you have to file a lawsuit within a certain period of time or else you lose the right to sue. Sometimes, you believe something happened, but you’re not sure of all of the facts or parties involved. That’s when you sue a defendant as a “Doe.” Later on down the road, as the facts and names become more clear, you file what’s called a “Doe Amendment,” where you say “John Smith is Doe 1,” etc. Seems a little strange, but happens all the time and there’s a good reason for it.

  Comment by Anonymous — Saturday August 4, 2012 @ 10:53am PDT  Reply to this post

• I still don’t get this lawsuit.

  From what I gather, some unknown “doe” made a television series based on Hello Kitty around 10 years ago, which was likely successful, and Sanrio had no idea it existed until last year (possibly years after ending)?

  How can the owner of a brand like Hello Kitty not know if they licensed a television series based on it or not? That’s really bad.

  Comment by Dillan — Saturday August 4, 2012 @ 3:50pm PDT  Reply to this post

• @Dillan – the specific facts in the Complaint are fairly vauge, which is pretty normal for a lawsuit. But from the pleadings, it appears that Sanrio or one of its licensed subsidiaries created some type of programming content. A movie, a tv series or something of that nature. Then someone over here in the US obtained copies of that content without the legal right to possess it. Then, based on the language of the complaint, they probably made copies of the programming and sold those copies without first getting permission to do so and without paying royalties or licensing for it.

  So Sanrio would know of the content, but not necessarily know where copies of the content were being sold, if they were being sold illegally. Picture the authorities raiding a shop or street vendor somewhere who’s selling bootleg dvd’s. Now Sanrio is on notice that their property is being bootleg’d but they don’t know who the higher-up’s behind the operation are. So they file this lawsuit against the Doe’s. At some point, as the facts become more clear to them, they will substitute named parties in for the Does. And the judge will have to determine whether the statute of limitations has run or not.

  Comment by Anonymous — Saturday August 4, 2012 @ 5:55pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Sounds like they could be talking about eBay sellers, street vendors, etc. selling bootleg copies of the toons. The only detail that doesn’t fit with that is becoming aware of the problem during a “financial review.” But that’s a pretty vague term and could certainly include scanning the internet to see how their toons were being distributed.

  Comment by JediJones — Saturday August 4, 2012 @ 6:30pm PDT  Reply to this post

• @Anonymous:

  Very interesting.

  I was unaware of this manner of litigation.

  Thanks for the (detailed) responses.

  Comment by Ray — Saturday August 4, 2012 @ 8:28pm PDT  Reply to this post