31 October, 2017

Needs Formatting - TV Show Formats Potentially Protected by Copyright

As companies like Netflix and Hulu are entering the fray of traditional TV production, creating their original content and licensing others, the value of more typical TV competition for eyeballs on particular timeslots has become negligible. Grabbing the attention of viewers are a fixed time, competing with other networks for the same slot, used to be a competition of outsmart and 'outcreate', giving TV formats incredible value if done right. Even if the specific production of 'prime time' TV has diminished due to the shift towards on-demand, TV formats still have value under IP laws. The matter rarely sees the light of day in a court room, but a recent UK High Court decision discussed whether a TV format can be protected under copyright.

The case of Banner Universal Motion Pictures Ltd v Endemol Shine Group Ltd & Anor concerned a TV gameshow called "Minute Winner", which was created by Derek Banner, the owner of Banner Universal Motion Pictures. Allegedly Mr Banner had disclosed a document detailing the format of the show to Friday TV (the second defendant in the matter), a Swedish TV production company at a meeting in 2005. Mr Banner also claimed that the defendants had misused confidential information to create and broadcast a show called "A Minute to Win It" in 2011, infringing on BUMP's rights in the format, breaching confidence in the same and passing off. The defendants contested the rights in the format document, that a breach of confidence claim was estopped due to a decision earlier by the Swedish courts and the passing off claim.

The Court first addressed the issue of whether the format document was a copyright protected work, specifically as a dramatic work under section 1 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

As discussed, for example in SAS Institute Inc. v World Programming Ltd, a work has to be 'original', i.e. "…the work must be an expression of the author's own intellectual creation". This is assessed by looking at the whole of the work, not just its constituent parts, including both novel and non-novel parts. A dramatic work itself is defined as "…a work of action, with or without words or music, which is capable of being performed before an audience".

There has been some degree of case law on TV formats; however, only in the far-away land of New Zealand. The leading authority is Green v Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand, where the New Zealand Court of Appeal considered that merely the idea of a TV format is not sufficient to be a dramatic work protected by copyright. This was in that "…because [the format] could not be acted or performed, being no more than a general scheme for a proposed entertainment", and "…in what way the underlying idea has been distilled out and translated into an expression thereof in a material form sufficiently identifiable to be copied". Due to this lack of tangible expression, bar an idea, leaves the subject matter unclear and therefore not protectable.

Brad was truly captivated by the TV format
Justice Snowden disagreed with the New Zealand authorities, and set out that TV show formats could arguably be protected by copyright under certain criteria. These would be, as a minimum: "…(i) there are a number of clearly identified features which, taken together, distinguish the show in question from others of a similar type; and (ii) that those distinguishing features are connected with each other in a coherent framework which can be repeatedly applied so as to enable the show to be reproduced in recognisable form". Under the criteria, Justice Snowden concluded that BUMP had a low likelihood of success to meet them for an arguable case of infringement, due to a lack of "…a coherent framework or structure which could be relied upon to reproduce a distinctive game show in recognisable form". All of the features of the show were commonplace and indistinguishable from other similar shows (including its name). Even if there were copyright in the work, the show that was produced differed from the BUMP work in many ways, and there would be no infringement.

The second matter was of breach of confidence. Having considered the principles of estoppel and res judicata, Justice Snowden determined that the action would fail due to Mr Banner being estopped from pursuing the claim as it is res judicata or an abuse of process. The legislation in the UK and Sweden is sufficiently similar so as to not require further determination.

Finally, the Court considered the matter of passing off. As discussed in Starbucks (HK), to establish a claim under passing off the claimant has to "…establish that it has actual goodwill in this jurisdiction, and that such goodwill involves the presence of clients or customers in the jurisdiction for the products or services in question". Even without a physical presence in the country it is possible to have goodwill. Justice Snowden swiftly dismissed this argument, as Mr Banner never had any customers in the UK who purchased the rights to the TV show. He did have a website displaying his formats, but the TV show in question was only one of several on that site, and it was nonetheless one of many sent to ITV by email after the meeting in 2005. No goodwill was therefore established in the UK, and the passing off claim failed.

The case has opened the door for claims on TV show formats, but clearly sets a high threshold to establish actual rights in that format. As no UK authorities have dealt with this subject matter, the case is a welcome one, even though the matter is a very niche one. A good TV show format is still very valuable, and protection should be offered, but not willy-nilly.

Source: IPKat

18 October, 2017

Citation Needed - CJEU Decides on Use of Registered Designs as Citations for the Sale of Goods Online

Marketing your goods online can be very tricky, especially if you are in the business of making proprietary goods or accessories relating to well-known brands or goods. Using the name, image or design of the goods your items relate to is almost necessary to communicate the relationship of the goods to the consumer, but without proper authorisation this can be a thorny issue. The law does allow for the use of registered designs for some purposes, but could the use of a design for the sale of goods be allowed under EU law? The CJEU took on this question in late September, giving some clarity to those wishing to do so.

The case of Nintendo Co. Ltd v BigBen Interactive GmbH dealt with the manufacture sale of remote controls and other accessories for the Nintendo Wii gaming console by BigBen, selling them online to consumers in France, Belgium and Luxembourg, and to its German subsidiary. The German entity sold the goods, manufactured by BigBen in France, to consumers in Austria and Germany. The German entity in itself does not hold any stock, but orders them when needed from the French entity. Both companies used images of the Wii and its official accessories (protected by registered designs, e.g. here and here) in the sale of these goods. Nintendo took both entities to court in Germany for design infringement.

The CJEU faced three questions in the matter, specifically dealing with whether the court of a Member State has jurisdiction over the matter where the infringement happened elsewhere; is this use allowed as citation under EU law; and how the place of infringement would be determined.

The first question, as summarized by the court, asked in essence whether the Community Designs Regulation (along with Article 6(1) of the Jurisdiction Regulation) gives jurisdiction to a court to impose an injunction against a party who is supplied by another party in another Member State for infringement of a registered design.


The CJEU first dealt with the issue of jurisdiction. Article 82 of the Community Designs Regulation sets out that "…claims fall primarily within the international jurisdiction of the courts of the Member State in which the defendant is domiciled or, if he is not domiciled in any of the Member States, in any Member State in which he has an establishment". This can also include the Member State where the act of infringement has been committed or is threatened. For Article 6 of the Jurisdiction Regulation to apply there has to be a connection between various defendants in different jurisdictions "…that it is expedient to determine those actions together in order to avoid the risk of irreconcilable judgments resulting from separate proceedings". The court also highlighted that, under case law, two companies in the same group acting in an identical or similar manner would constitute the same situation of fact.

According to the CJEU, "…the territorial jurisdiction of a Community design court seised of an action for infringement within the meaning of Article 81(a)… extends throughout the European Union also in respect of the defendant who is not domiciled in the Member State of the forum". This means that there would be no jurisdictional issue with regards to pursuing a company in a different Member State through a national court within the EU.

The court then moved onto the second issue of use of the design as a citation. The question posed to the court, in short, asked whether Article 20 of the Community Designs Regulation meant that the use of a registered design by a third party, without authorisation, to demonstrate goods being sold online would be use as a citation and therefore allowed.

Burt definitely needed a citation (Source: xkcd)
The CJEU first looked at the meaning of 'citation'. They emphasised the designs' use for an illustrative purpose, in that "…a third party that lawfully sells goods intended to be used with specific goods corresponding to Community designs and reproduces the latter in order to explain or demonstrate the joint use of the goods it sells and a product corresponding to a protected design carries out an act of reproduction for the purpose of making ‘citations'". The use, however, would be assessed using three cumulative conditions: "…the compatibility of the acts of reproduction with fair trade practice, the absence of undue prejudice to the normal exploitation of the design on account of such acts and mention of the source".

The first condition look at whether the reproduction of the design falls within 'honest practices in industrial or commercial matters', i.e. should the design be reproduced in such a way as to create an impression of a commercial connection between the two entities, it would not be made for the purpose of citation. The second condition concerns the reproduction of the design that negatively affects the economic interest or their normal exploitation by the rightsholder. The third condition is simply attribution, so that a reasonable and observant consumer will know the design's commercial origin.

The court concluded that in the matter at hand the reproduction would be for the purpose of citation if it fulfils all of the above conditions.

Finally, the court addressed the last question of where the infringement would be committed between the two group companies, as the group companies reside and have committed infringements in several EU Member States. The CJEU, having considered the legislative framework, considered that "…the ‘country in which the act of infringement was committed’ within the meaning of Article 8(2) of that regulation must be interpreted as meaning that it refers to the country where the event giving rise to the damage occurred, namely the country on whose territory the act of infringement was committed". This hones down the legislation as applying to where the act was committed, rather than the damage occurring (i.e. infringement in Germany damaging a country in France).

As acknowledged by the court, IP does leave this interpretation as difficult, since the act could happen in a variety of locations in one time. In the light of this, the CJEU set out that "… where the same defendant is accused of various acts of infringement falling under the concept of ‘use’ within the meaning of Article 19(1) of [the Community Designs Regulation] in various Member States, the correct approach for identifying the event giving rise to the damage is not to refer to each alleged act of infringement, but to make an overall assessment of that defendant’s conduct in order to determine the place where the initial act of infringement at the origin of that conduct was committed or threatened". In the situation in the current matter, the place where the goods were put on sale online would be where the infringement took place.

 The CJEU's decision is a very interesting one, and while they made no assessment on the particular infringements in the case, it still gives national courts the tools to do so themselves in a more flexible manner rather than just designating each infringement in its respective country. This will make the assessment of infringement, and similarly of citation, much clearer for the future.

10 October, 2017

Shared by a Little Bird - Does Retweeting Protected Works Infringe IP?

Social media has made the near-thoughtless sharing of content a part of everyday life, whether it is sharing an article you liked or a picture you found somewhere. Even though the sharing of the content seems innocuous and more often than not will drive views towards the original creator, the possible legal issues of sharing without actually seeking permission or checking whether, for example, a Creative Commons licence exists. One such platform that might not come to people's mind at first is Twitter, where users can 'retweet' content that someone else has posted on their Twitter account (more on Twitter in general here and here) with very little effort. In the light of this, could the retweeting of content infringe on someone's rights?

This question will soon potentially get an answer, after a claim was commenced in the District Court of the Middle District of Pennsylvania, as reported on JDSupra. In the complaint Keith Bell, a well-known sports psychologist and author, sued King's College (a Pennsylvanian private educational institution) and Jeffrey Knarr (the head coach of American football at King's College) for both copyright and trademark infringement. Mr Knarr had retweeted two images of pages from Mr Bell's book "Winning Isn’t Normal", which were originally shared by a separate Twitter account operated by Northeastern State University's baseball team. While the baseball team removed their tweet after being approached by Mr Bell, Mr Knarr didn't do so, and his retweet had garnered some degree of interest. Mr Bell had registered copyright and trademark rights in his book well before the claim.


Sharing is caring?
As a starting point, Twitters TOS set out that "[b]y submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). This license authorizes us to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same". Clearly this is simply to protect Twitter's position in the event that an author of a work posts their content on the platform, but it doesn't offer a safe harbour for those who post material they have no rights in (or equally, further sharing that material through retweets). Clearly there would be no protection offered by the TOS to any users sharing materials without ensuring its legitimacy.

Case law doesn't shed light on this issue much, as most cases dealing with social media have yet to hit the scene in a big way. For example, a similar claim to the above was filed in 2015, but the case settled before being decided.

Even so, the case of Agence France Presse v Morel offers some guidance. In the case a photographer claimed copyright infringement after a picture they took was copied from their Twitter account and used in newspaper reporting. Among many other observations, the District Court of the Southern District Court of New York saw that the Twitter TOS didn't protect copying the works from the service, as the artists retained the rights in the works even when posted (but Twitter could put them on the website and display them on the artist's account). No licence is therefore given to the copier, even if the TOS state terms that might indicate as such. The retention of rights and the work's subsequent copying are therefore the important considerations around Twitter and copyright infringement.

Arguably, by retweeting e.g. a picture of a work you are creating a copy of that work, and should it be substantial enough it can be copyright infringement. There can be an argument under fair use in the US, which would be, in this writer's mind, a good one, but in the UK fair dealing would be more difficult to argue. A claim of trademark infringement would also be very viable, as the full name of the book (a registered trademark) is included in the Twitter post with the body of the text.

Overall it seems that retweeting material can be risky, particularly if the content is not attributed at all. This writer is a large proponent of sharing content on social media, and believes that the more sharing the better (with proper attribution, of course); however, users need to keep in mind that not everyone wants that to happen. It will be interesting to see where the law develops in terms of social media in the coming years, but it seems that the rights in an author's works would still very much remain and be enforceable.

03 October, 2017

Hungry for a Fight - Are There Rights in a Recipe How-to Video?

Food has become incredibly trendy in recent years (not that people didn't eat in years before), and many aspiring home cooks and chefs alike have moved onto modern platforms to share their know-how and passion with others. Sites like YouTube are filled with instructional and entertaining cooking videos, garnering millions of views from all over the world. Because of this, there is tremendous value in these videos and their viewers, and competition can get heated. This blog has discussed IP and food before (more here and here), and this writer has just come across a very interesting dispute over a how-to video involving cupcakes.

While the case has only recently begun, it still shows an interesting facet of copyright, particularly surrounding recipe videos.

The case of Elizabeth Labau v Food Network (complaint accessible here) concerns a recipe video made by Ms Labau for her website SugarHero. After a very successful online recipe that went viral, Ms Labau created a how-to video showing how to make her recipe step-by-step, following the success of her recipe article, which was subsequently published in December 2016. Sometime later in December 2016, the Food Network had published a video illustrating their take on the snow globe cupcake, and according to Ms Labau, copied numerous elements from her video, including "...choices of shots, camera angles, colors, and lighting [and] textual descriptors". Ms Labau has since complained to the District Court of the Central District of California, alleging copyright infringement.


Alex's take on cupcakes was a little "unique"
Although the decision from the District Court is still pending, the case will face its share of problems along the way. Ms Labau has not asserted copyright infringement in the recipe for the snow globe cupcakes, but only in the video showing how to make the cupcakes themselves. As discussed on this blog before, recipes are incredibly difficult to protect, and the only thing one can pursue in relation to them is the expression of that recipe, i.e. pictures or video. A simple list of ingredients won't be protectable.

It'll be interesting to see where the case goes, and whether the Food Network has actually copied elements of Ms Labau's video. Due to the proximity on posting the videos it is likely that one took inspiration from another, but as long as the expression of the recipe differs from Ms Labau's video, it'll be difficult for an argument for infringement to be established. This writer thinks Ms Labau could have a case, but this would require a near exact shot-for-shot recreation to have much strength in a court of law.

This writer does think that the case will most likely settle out of court, but a proper inspection of how-to videos and copyright would be very interesting, considering the generic nature of these types of videos. The style of many cooking how-to videos are only distinguished through choices of lighting and general filmography, and this writer thinks it would be interesting to see whether a sequence of steps could attract copyright protection, and how close would one have to get to infringe those rights, seeing as the style of these types of videos if widely established. Should the court side with Ms Labau, it could open the floodgates for many claims involving simple step-by-step videos of the same, or similar recipes to fight for the scrupulous viewership of today's Internet populace.

Source: Hollywood Reporter