Italian Supreme Court confirms availability of copyright protection to TV formats
The TV format at the centre of the case decided by the Supreme Court TV formats may be incredibly valuable, and be sold in franchise in several countries. As a result, also disputes relating to TV formats may be complex, lengthy and with uncertain outcomes, as the current litigation relating to The Voice , for example, demonstrates [ here and here ] . In addition to the complexities of individual cases, a further difficulty is defining what kind of legal treatment TV formats are subject to in the first place. Discussion of the type of protection available has been, in fact, rather contentious in a number of countries. On the one hand, there are jurisdictions (like the UK), in which subject-matter like TV formats may not to be really suitable for inclusion in the scope of protection of an IP right like copyright (also for difficulties related to the closed subject-matter categorisation envisaged by the Copyright, Designs and Pa...