Manga publisher VIZ Media has won its lawsuit against over 100 entities found to have willfully committed trademark and copyright infringement of the anime-inspired RWBY franchise. Of the several orders issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the infringers are now banned from engaging in counterfeiting activity, will have their marketplace accounts shut down on various sites, their websites disabled or transferred under VIZ’s control, and, perhaps, most notably, will pay damages to VIZ.
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District Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins ordered on February 25, 2025, that the 131 remaining defendants in the lawsuit will pay $100,000 in damages for willful trademark infringement and another $100,000 in willful copyright infringement. The maximum that the court could have granted for willful trademark infringement was $2,000,000 per trademark (Cornell), while the maximum for willful copyright infringement was $150,000 (Cornell). As some infringers may have been named multiple times in the lawsuit due to acting under different aliases, this order will only apply once per person, possibly decreasing the total.
With 131 defendants named and a total of $200,000 per person, VIZ has therefore been awarded up to $26,200,000 in damages. Many of the defendants failed to provide any defence or present themselves for court proceedings, meaning a default judgment was entered against them. You can check out the full list of defendants below.
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With some possibly acting under multiple aliases and outside of the U.S., VIZ may struggle to secure the full damages awarded. Judge Jenkins ordered all companies holding funds for the defendants, including PayPal, AliPay, Alibaba, Wish.com, Ant Financial Services Group (“Ant Financial”), and Amazon Pay, to stop the defendants from transferring funds (up to the amount they’ve been ordered to pay for copyright infringement) within 7 days of receiving the order.
They’ve also been ordered to transfer all money currently in those accounts to VIZ within 14 days (up to the amount they’ve been ordered to pay for copyright infringement). VIZ’s legal representatives declined to comment. Since this lawsuit, VIZ has filed at least four more lawsuits over its RWBY copyrights and trademarks.
RWBY began as an animated series created, co-written, and directed by Monty Oum at Rooster Teeth in 2013. To date, it has spanned 9 seasons (known as volumes), with co-writers Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross continuing the series after Oum’s passing following Season 3. RWBY has received multiple spinoff series, like RWBY: Ice Queendom, animated by Japanese anime studio SHAFT in 2022.
VIZ acquired the rights to RWBY after Rooster Teeth shut down in 2024, with more stories planned for the future. Shawcross will be involved in RWBY‘s next phase.
Source: VIZ Media, LLC v. The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule A (1:24-cv-12726) via CourtListener
© VIZ Media
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