ARGENTINA
TELEVISION FORMAT IDEAS ARE NOT APPROPRIABLE
The artistic manager of the series ‘Patito Feo’ has recently filed a suit against the production company of the program on the Chamber of Appeals for Commercial and Civil disputes in Federal Argentina, arguing that he was the original inventor of the program’s format. In this case, the Argentinian court accurately considered that in the field of copyright ideas are not appropriable, and consequently, the plaintiff could not claim any ownership over them.
This decision reaffirms the principle that copyright protects the form of expression of ideas but not ideas themselves. Therefore, the entrepreneurs who create television formats must protect each of the intellectual property rights that are part of the format independently.
