Resumen de France: Originality of television broadcast format
Decisions on copyright protection for the format of a television programme are sufficiently rare so as to warrant reporting the recent decision handed down by the regional court (tribunal de grande instance - TGI) of Paris.
In the case at issue, the business manager of an audiovisual production company described himself as the creator of the ‘Teum-Teum’ audiovisual concept. This consists of filming, in a flat located in “sensitive” area, a magazine programme during which a presenter hosts a guest celebrity from the world of culture, show business, or politics for a discussion on their respective environments, current affairs, and everyday life in urban housing estates. Having produced the initial format for the broadcast in 2004, the applicant, the producer, had presented a pilot programme in 2005 to a number of media professionals who had been approached about the programme. The concept aroused interest at France 5 and in 2007 the applicant agreed to develop a new format for the ‘Teum-Teum’ programme with an executive co-producer (the defendant company), which became “a magazine for self-discovery through the eyes of other people”. For this purpose, they signed an agreement to transfer to the defendant company all the rights for audiovisual adaptation and use involving the audiovisual concept of ‘Teum-Teum’, and an agreement with a view to co-producing a pilot broadcast. The executive producer also proposed that, should plans be made to produce a programme based on the format, the applicant company should co-produce the programme. The magazine programme developed within this contractual framework had been broadcast on a monthly basis and repeated on France 5 from 2009 to 2011. The broadcast had not been renewed thereafter and the executive producer had, for its part, developed and produced another programme, entitled ‘Les uns, les autres’. The applicant company claimed that this new magazine used every aspect of the format of the ‘Teum-Teum’ programme, with the same presenter, narrative structure and teams, and that its partner, which had not consulted it, had violated the co-production contract. In view of this, the applicant company had the respondent company summoned to appear in court.
