Argentinian winery stole British artist's designs for bottle labels

Telegraph

3 days ago

A British artist has won compensation after suing an Argentinean winery for £150,000 over claims that her work was copied for its malbec labels.
Shantell Martin, 44, who was this year awarded an MBE for her services to British art, has a distinctive style of black white murals, which she said had been replicated on to a bottle of wine made by Bodegas San Huberto Sa, which was sold in the UK by Marc Patch, of Hampshire-based GM Drinks Ltd.
The artist protested that the label for the winemaker's Aminga Malbec featured drawings that appeared to be lifted from a site-specific drawing that she created for her 2017 solo show, Someday We Can, at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo.
She complained that two more labels displayed on a further 500,000 bottles of imported wine also infringed on her work.
Ms Martin sued both companies along with Mr Patch, claiming damages of 'at least $200,000' based on the licence fee she said she would have expected had the Argentinean winemaker asked permission to use her work.
Judge David Stone, at London's High Court, has ruled that the first of the three labels the artist complained about – created for the winery by an independent designer – did indeed copy her work.
He found that although it wasn't aware of the design theft, Mr Patch's company GM Drinks was liable for selling infringing bottles in the UK, while both the winemaker and Mr Patch personally also shared some joint responsibility.
But he went on to tell the artist that she would not be entitled to as much as $200,000 (£151,140) in damages from her five-year fight after finding that the vast majority of the bottles either didn't infringe on her designs or were sold before the companies were aware of the problem.
Following the initial complaint, the winery had the label redesigned twice, with GM Drinks importing about half a million bottles with the new designs.
But Ms Martin claimed that the two new labels also infringed her work.
Judge Stone said: 'Even though GM Drinks did not know it was doing anything unlawful, it was.'
He added that the winery and Mr Patch were jointly liable in relation to a small number of bottles sold after Ms Martin's complaint.
However, damages are expected to be awarded at a much lower fee, as the judge said the case was suitable to be decided at a court where claims are less than £10,000.
GM Drinks had only made a profit of £924 from the bottles that had infringed her work, the court heard.
He said: 'Correspondence indicates that the claimants requested $200,000 from the defendants, that being a sum said to reflect the amounts Ms Martin usually receives for her collaborations with third parties. Counsel for the claimants before me put this based on a reasonable royalty that would be agreed in the circumstances.
'It is not pre-judging the matter to remark that each of the collaborations that was in evidence before me was very different to the infringement that I have found in this case.
'The claimants are now also aware that the vast bulk of the products, being the third label products, do not infringe. Further, the low volume of first label products overall, and the very low volume dealt with from shortly after 13 April 2020, mitigate against a reasonable royalty at that level.'