Florence’s Uffizi Gallery Wins Legal Battle
The Uffizi Gallery has received a $120,000 victory in a U.S. court case over the use of its name in online domains by ticket scalpers.
The world renowned museum, which welcomes about 2 million visitors annually, has been a long-time target for these “bloodsuckers,” many of whom create websites disguised as the official Uffizi Gallery to make a profit off of selling tickets to unknowing visitors.
In 2017, the museum created a new website and redesigned its logo to make it easier for buyers to know where to purchase legitimate tickets. To prevent scalpers from selling on the streets, Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt went as far as making public service announcements with a loudspeaker outside of the gallery, warning visitors about false ticket sellers; he was fined in both 2016 and 2017 for not receiving a proper city permit for the speakers. Even with these attempts, the price gouging continued at the expense of tourists and the museum.
BoxNic, an American company from Arizona, was taken to federal court this year by the Uffizi Gallery, who claimed it was using the Uffizi name online to deceive visitors and sell the museum’s tickets at a higher price. Court documents show that BoxNic had claimed to have registered for website addresses such as Uffizi.com and Uffizi.net in the US since 1998, which is almost identical to the official website for the Uffizi Gallery—Uffizi.it. BoxNic argued that the website address did not refer to the famed art gallery, but to an antiquated way of spelling “uffici” (offices).
The American Federal Court of Arizona determined that only the official Uffizi Gallery can be a legitimate owner of the name itself, barring any online ticket scalpers from using the Florence museum’s name as a domain. The court ruling declared that BoxNic’s use of these domain websites to sell higher priced tickets was prohibited under federal law and the company was found guilty of cybersquatting, unfair competition, and trademark infringement and dilution.
On June 3, District Judge David G. Campbell declared that BoxNic must pay the Uffizi Gallery $119,460.50 within 15 days to cover attorney fees and other costs.
Despite being controversial and oftentimes illegal, the ticket resale market is a successful industry, earning five billion dollars in the U.S. in 2015, according to numbers form Northcoast Research, an institutional equity research firm. Eike Schmidt, the Director of the Uffizi Gallery, underlined the significance of this outcome as a win against ticket scalpers, stating that the judges’ decision to have the guilty party pay for the gallery’s legal costs is a rare occurrence in U.S. Courts.
“It’s the definitive confirmation of our first huge and difficult victory in the fight against the web’s bloodsuckers—a fight that certainly does not stop here, but needs to continue even further to eradicate this problem,” he said. (victoria caruso)
