The Provincial Court of Badajoz upholds the ruling that requires the Extremaduran City Council to compensate the Tenerife designer Francisco Javier Torres with 6,500 euros for copying his work from the 2016 Santa Cruz de Tenerife Carnival.
The Tenerife designer Francisco Javier Torres has definitively won the legal battle against the Don Benito City Council (Badajoz) for the plagiarism of the 2016 Santa Cruz de Tenerife Carnival poster. The Provincial Court of Badajoz has fully confirmed the ruling of the Commercial Court of Mérida, which condemned the Extremaduran City Council for infringing the intellectual property rights of the Chicharrero author.
The ruling, which is now final unless appealed to the Supreme Court, establishes that the promotional poster for the Don Benito Carnival 2025 is a copy of Torres's original design. The resolution emphasises that the plagiarism is “obvious” and that “a simple glance at the two posters” is enough to appreciate the enormous similarity.
A compensation of 6,500 euros for material and moral damages
The Don Benito City Council must pay 6,500 euros to the Tenerife designer, of which 2,500 corresponds to material damages and 4,000 to moral damages. Additionally, the ruling requires the City Council to cease the use of the plagiarised poster, withdraw and destroy all existing copies, and publish the ruling in local and regional media at its own expense. The payment of the costs of the appeal also falls to the municipal council.
For the Canary Island reader, this ruling represents a significant precedent in the defence of the copyright of local creators. Francisco Javier Torres, a designer based in Tenerife, has succeeded in having the Justice system recognise his authorship of an iconic image of the Chicharrero Carnival, the 2016 poster, which featured the chicharro as its central element, a traditional symbol of Santa Cruz.
The chicharro, a symbol of Santa Cruz identity
One of the key points of the litigation was the defence put forth by the Don Benito City Council, which claimed that the graphic motif was a common carnival element, like a sardine. However, the Provincial Court dismantled this argument by pointing out that the distinctive element of the original work was not a sardine, but the chicharro, a symbol “inseparable from Santa Cruz identity”.
The Court also reminded that the author retains his intellectual property rights even if he has ceded the use of the work for a specific event, such as the 2016 Santa Cruz de Tenerife Carnival. Therefore, Torres fully retains the ability to claim against any unauthorised use, such as that carried out by the Extremaduran City Council.
Silence in the face of attempts at an amicable agreement
The ruling also criticises the attitude of the Don Benito City Council, which ignored the warnings from the Tenerife designer. According to the resolution, Francisco Javier Torres attempted to resolve the conflict amicably before the start of the 2025 Carnival, first sending an email and later a burofax to the City Council. None of these communications received a response, a circumstance that the Court took into account when assessing the behaviour of the sued administration.
With this decision, the Justice system consolidates the recognition of copyright over one of the most representative images of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Carnival. The resolution can only be appealed to the Supreme Court, provided that the legal requirements for its admission are met.
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