The titanic battle over ownership of the Big Brother format appears finally to have been resolved by the Dutch Supreme Court after a legal battle lasting well over three years. On 16 April the Supreme Court of the Hague rejected the appeal by Castaway Television Productions Ltd and Planet 24 Productions Ltd against the decision of the … Read more
Sports governing bodies like nothing more than to set up “governance” committees in which, under the guise of acting “for the good of the sport”, they make decisions which can have pretty have serious commercial consequences for other participants – usually those who take the commercial risks. The OFT’s proposed settlement of its proceedings against … Read more
The international trade in format rights is now worth $1billion annually, but formats remain a species of intellectual property which has scarcely hit the radar of most jurisdictions around the world. The Dutch Court of Appeal recently found a television format to be a copyright work, although a claim of breach of copyright based on … Read more
The announcement on 3 June that the US Department of Justice has found that the Movelink joint venture between five major movie studios which provides video on demand (VOD) services gives rise to no competition problems, is further proof of the difficulties anti trust authorities encounter when they try to enforce competition rules in emerging … Read more
When is a work a joint work? Pamela Brighton (‘PB’), the director of the original (1996) production of the play “Stones in His Pockets“, claimed to be its author jointly with Marie Jones (‘MJ’), the accredited author both of that play and of its later (1999) incarnation, which was a huge success in the West … Read more
Section 4 of the Defamation Act 1996 introduced the Offer of Amends defence as a quick and easy complete defence available to defendants who sought an early settlement of libel proceedings against them. If the defence is accepted, a judge then assesses the damages if a figure cannot be agreed. As Lord Justice May observed … Read more
