NIPC Law

Crying mask Melpomene and laughing mask Thalia Author Tim Green   Licence CC BY-SA 2.0   Source Wikimedia Commons   Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (Recorder Amanda Michaels) Rinkoff v Baby Cow Productions Ltd [2025] EWHC 39 (IPEC) (17 Jan 2025) This was a claim for copyright infringement. The work in which copyright was alleged to subsist as an original dramatic work was the format of two series of comedy shows called "Shambles ". The individual who devised that format was the writer and comedian Joshua Rinkoff ("Mr Rinkoff") who performs under the name  Harry Deansway.   Mr Rinkoff alleged that Baby Cow Productions Ltd . ("Baby Cow") had copied his format to make a series called "Live at the Moth Club".  The action came on for trial before Recorder Amanda Michaels on 4 and 5 Nov 2024.  By her judgment of 17 Jan 2025, the recorder dismissed Mr Rinkoff's claim (see Rinkoff v Baby Cow Productions Ltd [2025] EWHC 39 (IP...

I wrote a note on Mr Justice Rattee's decision in  Norowzian v Arks Ltd and Others [1998] EWHC 315 (Ch) (17 July 1998) some 10 years ago and updated it slightly after the appeal was dismissed ([1999] EWCA Civ 3014).    I had another look at the case while updating the IP/IT Update website and found that Lord Justice Nourse's decision contained some interesting dicta on the nature of copyright, originality and the interface between film and dramatic copyrights. The Issue The question was whether a young director's show reel, "Joy" , had been copied. The claimant had made a film which Mr Justice Rattee described as   a very short film with no dialogue :  it was shot by Mr Norowzian on the flat rooftop of a building in London. The set was merely a canvas sheet draped over an existing structure on the roof where the filming took place. The cast consists of one man only, casually dressed, and the whole action of the film consists of that one man dancing to music. He ...