Frapa rewrites format guide

Rights-protection association Frapa is preparing a refreshed guide for format producers concerned about IP infringement.

Jan Salling

The Frapa Legal Report 2017 is being developed with UK law firm Baker & McKenzie and will update the organisation’s previous guide, published in 2011.

The new version will include details of format right protection under international law and will explore the cases of around 40 IP judgments.

The guide, which will cover more than 20 countries, will detail how to define and protect formats.

Jan Salling, co-chairman of Frapa and CEO of Danish prodco Missing Link Media, said the report was prescient given the escalation of IP infringement cases.

One ongoing high-profile case has seen FremantleMedia take production giant Banijay Group to the High Court in London, a story broken by C21.

Fremantle is claiming copyright infringement involving the format All Against 1, but Banijay refutes the allegations and will counter sue.

In the UK, indie Love Productions was involved in a disagreement with the BBC over its Great British Bake Off format, which it says the coporation copied in series such as The Big Painting Challenge. The hit cookery show ultimately moved to rival Channel 4 in a £75m (US$93m) three-season deal.

Yesterday Sony Pictures Television denied that its NBC time-travel drama Timeless was a rip-off of a Spanish-language format it had previously been pitched by Onza Partners.