The former director of the liquidated internet advertising company Mediatonas will have to pay €200,000 in damages to Hollywood star Clint Eastwood for using his image in advertising cannabis products without the actor's permission.
The Klaipeda District Court found that Mediatonas created a false impression in its advertising that Eastwood supports and uses cannabidiol (CBD) products.
"The use of the name, reputation, and image of a world-famous person for advertising purposes has independent economic value in the market and is usually compensated. The court established that in this case, the damage arose specifically due to the illegal commercial use of Clint Eastwood's image in advertising without his consent and without compensation for such use," the court stated on Friday.
"The company violated the provisions of the Civil Code and the Advertising Law, as it used the name and image of the plaintiff in advertising without his consent and attributed statements to him that he never made," the statement emphasized.
This was already the third time that the Klaipeda District Court considered this case — previously, the Court of Appeal had returned it for reconsideration twice, deciding that the essence of the case had not been properly disclosed.
As reported earlier by BNS, in a previous ruling in December last year, the Klaipeda District Court also partially satisfied the American actor's claim, but ordered Mediatonas and its former director Gedrius Buchinskas to pay more — €250,000 with 5% interest from the moment the case was initiated in court (in June 2024) until the court's decision is fully executed.
In the court's opinion, the new amount of damages was established considering "the scale of the advertising, its accessibility to internet users, and the plaintiff's notoriety," as well as the fact that Eastwood proved the material damage.
Earlier, a court in the United States ordered the Lithuanian company to pay the actor and his company €5.27 million as compensation for damages, and since it was liquidated, the plaintiffs — Eastwood and Garrapata LLC, which manages the rights to his images and persona — asked to recover this damage from its director Buchinskas, who was aware of the lawsuit in the U.S. and sought to avoid the collection of a million-dollar amount from his company, which is why he decided to liquidate it.
According to the Klaipeda court, it was Buchinskas's knowledge of the lawsuit in the U.S. that led to his decision to liquidate the successful and highly profitable company Mediatonas.
The Central District Court of California (Federal Court of Los Angeles) ruled in October 2021 that Mediatonas must pay Eastwood and Garrapata $6.1 million (approximately €5.26 million).
Founded in March 2017, Mediatonas was registered in the Taurage district, in the village of Dauglaikis, and was engaged in website creation. At the end of 2020 and in previous years, Mediatonas had no long-term assets.
In 2021, Eastwood filed two lawsuits in the U.S. against three manufacturers and advertisers of cannabis products, whose products were mentioned in an online article — it claimed that the movie legend supports the use of cannabis products.
