Cayman’s two main online ticket platforms are heading for court amid allegations of a “flagrant” copyright infringement.
The two businesses – which act as online sales vendors for almost every event in Cayman, from the Taste of Cayman food festival to sports tournaments and New Year’s Eve parties – are at loggerheads.
Long-time market leader EventPro claims rival startup TicketsPlus copied the legal documents that underpin the business.
Owners of TicketsPlus say the documents reflect standard legal language and claim the lawsuit is a tactic to stifle legitimate competition.
EventPro filed a writ in the Grand Court in December, claiming that rival TicketsPlus had copied its “governing documents” – the series of legal contracts that dictates the terms and conditions of the company’s partnership with the numerous organisations and event companies it promotes.
The writ claims that this was a “flagrant” infringement of its copyright, stating that the rival company lifted the wording from EventPro’s documents. In one instance, the writ states, EventPro’s address had been left in the documents published by TicketsPlus.
TicketsPlus denied any wrongdoing and has indicated it will contest the lawsuit.
Underpinning documents
The lawsuit refers to a series of “governing documents” – which were produced by a legal firm for EventPro, and include terms and conditions, merchant agreements and privacy policies. The product of numerous refinements over the years, the documents collectively provide the underpinning legal infrastructure for the business, according to the company.
They constitute the contract with event promoters and details such as how refunds are handled and responsibility for customer complaints, as well as the commissions structure and other pivotal details.
The company, in court papers filed last month, claims TicketsPlus has copied these documents, published them in “substantially the same form” and used them as the basis for its own business.
The writ alleges this is a “copyright infringement” and that the rival company has won business on the basis of this breach. It states that EventPro has lost business as a result and is entitled to compensation or royalties for any event promoted by TicketsPlus on the basis of those documents.
“The profits derived from the Defendants’ agreements with event providers on the basis of the Governing Documents would not have been realised but for the unauthorised copying, publishing and utilisation of the Governing Documents,” it states.
It adds that this infringement was “flagrant”, stating, “The wording was almost identical, and in one instance, the Defendants had failed to amend the Plaintiff’s address in the version of the Governing Documents which they had published.”
The lawsuit also alleges that the wording and terms and conditions of the tickets was copied wholesale.
It lists a series of events, including Rub-a-Dub, Miss World and Life is Good, which it claims the two companies were in direct competition over and which TicketsPlus drew benefits from by using the EventPro documents.
The company is seeking damages for lost revenue and infringement of copyright, as well as an injunction preventing TicketsPlus from using the documents.
Asked for comment, TicketsPlus responded with a detailed statement to the Cayman Compass.
TicketsPlus responds
Owners Cedric Gidarisingh and John Watler characterised the lawsuit as an unfounded attempt to stifle the competition it has brought to the online event sales arena.
Watler claimed the suit was about “ego” and “competition”.
He said, “We are extremely disappointed a peer would even take this route over such a small claim, a simple phone call would have rectified it.”
TicketsPlus was set up as an offshoot of Trident Events, which organises numerous events, including Renegade Mas, Rub-A-Dub and the Sparkle New Year’s Eve Party. Online ticketing for those events was previously handled by EventPro. Gidarisingh said the online ticket sales platform had been set up to allow it to control sales for its own events. It has since branched out to sell other events.
Gidarisingh said the claims at the centre of the lawsuit were a “simple miscommunication”.
He added that the company did not accept that the legal documents, referred to as “the works”, were the basis for their profits, and disputes that copyright claims could be applied to what it describes as standard legal language.
“Their claims of ownership of the ‘legal language’ that protects online merchant transactions and their assertion that the very law and legal wording that has been protecting Ecommerce users long before the inception of EventPro is uniquely their own is a grotesque position by EventPro,” he said.
“This is a very unfortunate situation which could have been dealt with differently, but the numerous claims are refutable.”
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