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Banijay goes on Fremantle offensive

Banijay Group has said it it looks forward to defending itself in court against FremantleMedia’s copyright infringement claim involving the format All Against 1 and will counter-sue the company.

Interactive gameshow format All Against 1

Interactive gameshow format All Against 1

The legal dispute over the Banijay show escalated on Monday, with FremantleMedia revealing it was taking the production giant to the High Court in London.

In its first response since that move, Banijay said it “strongly repudiates the allegations” and re-affirmed that the format was its own.

“All Against 1 is a very successful entertainment format created through a collaboration between Nordisk Film TV Denmark, Nordisk Film TV Norway and Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, a development of the Nordisk Film TV Norway format King of Chess,” it said.

“Banijay strongly defends its position with regards to All Against 1 and looks forward to defending itself in court against the current claims.”

Abot Hameiri Productions (AHP), the Fremantle-backed Tel Aviv prodco that makes The X Factor and Survivor in Israel, claimed Banijay’s format is based on Are You Smarter Than The Crowd, which it pitched to the France-based international production group in 2014.

However, Banijay said it would be counter-claiming against AHP “for a declaration of non-infringement and damages for their attempt to damage Banijay’s format and current and potential sales.”

It also claimed the case had not been taken to the High Court, as FremantleMedia had suggested, but to the County Court – a sign of the weakness in the case, the prodco said. C21 has contacted FremantleMedia for clarification.

In a statement, Banijay added that it “is very confident that this claim will fail and remains adamant that All Against 1 is different from the format now known as Best of All.

“In addition, the wisdom of the crowd theory has been known since 1906 and is not something Abot Hameiri has invented. There are a number of other derivative entertainment formats from all over the world available on the market using similar mechanisms but none using our unique structure.

“There has never been a final decision of the English courts upholding ‘format rights’ in television programmes and Banijay does not expect this case to be the first, given the baseless and unsubstantiated allegations currently put forward.”

Fremantle has said broadcasters who proceed with local versions of the disputed format will be liable if the copyright infringement case is secured.

Further details surrounding the claim have emerged, with FremantleMedia claiming costs of £40,000 (US$50,000), based on the only known sale of the format so far, to DR1 in Denmark.

Banijay said it would “question whether this small amount indicates nothing more than a ‘nuisance claim.’”

Jonathan Coad, solicitor for AHP, told C21 the £40,000 figure is the “estimated net profit to Banijay Nordisk for that one sale to DR1 of the programme that we know of, which was broadcast very successfully earlier in the year.”

Coad, whose firm recently acted for UK indie Love Productions in its format claim against the BBC regarding the Great British Bake-Off format, said if more sales were made then the figure would rise accordingly.

Last week DR1 ordered a second season of the show while Nelonen in Finland and NRK in Norway have also commissioned new episodes.

Fremantle said AHP only discovered the existence of All Against 1 in August and contacted the production giant at the start of September to raise concerns, which were not addressed.

Neither DR, Nelonen nor NRK responded to requests for comment prior to publication.

In response to Banijay’s statement, Fremantle said today: “We are surprised by Banijay’s reaction to the issue of proceedings against them, given that we have tried to engage them in discussions to resolve this dispute without the need for legal proceedings for several weeks before the claim was issued.

“We are not at all concerned about a possible counterclaim which we are confident will fail, especially as Banijay has still to produce any evidence that their programme is original.”

 

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