With information from Infobae

Mexican actor Gael García Bernal expressed his disagreement with the result of the legal battle against the well-known whiskey brand Jhonnie Walker from Diageo Mexico, arguing that justice did not take into account article 216 Bis of the Federal Copyright Law.

According to information from the British newspaper The Guardian, the court’s resolution did not foresee the scope of the campaign, which covered more than 120 countries, resulting in sales of the drink increasing by more than one billion dollars, so the resolution would not cover the commercial value it brought to the García Bernal campaign.

It is pertinent to remember that in November 2021, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) favored the actor based on the Federal Copyright Law with the payment of one thousand minimum wages; since 2013, García undertook a legal battle against Jhonnie Walker of Diageo Mexico for the improper use of his image in an advertising campaign called “Walking with Giants”.

In the opinion of the filmmaker García Bernal, the advertising campaign transmitted 22 spots between September and October 2011 where reference was made to his image, for which he requested compensation, based on article 231 of the Federal Copyright Law, the which establishes as infractions in the matter of commerce the use of the image of a person without their authorization or that of their successors in title.

For its part, the company Diageo, a multinational dedicated to the distribution of liquors that has a body in Mexico, where it controls the sale of well-known brands of alcoholic beverages, one of them, Jhonnie Walker, alleged that it is not up to the Federation to legislate regarding the right to use the image and that its body in Mexico is not the owner of the Johnnie Walker brand, since its function only corresponds to the advertising and marketing of the product, so they could not appear as the defendant.

Faced with this situation, the SCJN rejected the arguments and explained that the aforementioned law protects the authors of a work and any person whose image is marketed without their consent, for which it demanded that the company pay the actor an exemplary corresponding to 40% of the total sales during the broadcast period of the claimed commercial.

It is essential to point out that this event set a precedent for other artists or anyone to rely on the Federal Copyright Law and demand a commercial sanction for the improper use of their image.