A case on educational tools illustrates the difficulties in asserting publishing copyrights. The Plaintiff is the author and copyright owner of various behaviour assessment tools and materials inspired from William Marston's DISC Theory. The materials are registered copyrights in the USA and have been applied for under Indonesia's voluntary copyright system.
The Plaintiff claimed that the Defendant had been using, translating, reproducing and distributing the Plaintiff's material in a book without the his consent. The Defendant was previously the Plaintiff's authorized agent in Indonesia. Several of his books were alleged to have used parts of the Plaintiff's copyrights including the 'pattern description' and materials allegedly copied from the Plaintiffs website.
The Jakarta Commercial Court refused to accept the Plaintiff's lawsuit because the Plaintiff did not clearly state which copyrights (among many mentioned in the case) had been infringed by the Defendant. The Supreme Court rejected the Plaintiff's appeal upholding the Commercial Court.
It is always hard with complex copyrights comprising a series of creative works, asserted as a whole, to identify specific works that are copied. It is vital to break them down to specific works when making claims.
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