According to a filing with the US District Court for the District of South Carolina, Bryan Glynn – CigarObsession – is suing Nick’s Cigar World for copyright infringement. More than just an on-camera personality, Glynn personally photographs the cigars that are featured in his videos and on his website. It appears, according to the information currently available, that Nick’s used one or more of these images without permission.
According to court records, this is far from the first time Glynn has sued for copyright infringement. There appear to have been over 10 such suits filed against various defendants in the past 4 years. Considering his recent move from YouTube over to Rumble as a result of YouTube’s continued crackdown on cigar content, it would appear that protecting one’s content could reach a point where it takes as much time as actually creating it does.
The way that that the law is written, as it relates to remedies for this kind of infringement, allows for statutory damages in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000.
We’ve reached out to Bryan Glynn and to Nick’s Cigar World for comment. Should any more information become available, this entry will be updated.