Volume 11 - Volume 11
Establishing the Copyright Ability of TV Formats in Cross-Border Private Relations
Abstract
The global market of copyrights on TV formats has been growing and developing since the 1950s but
their proper understanding has not been officially consolidated in positive law. The study subject is
cross-border relations that identify TV formats as copyrightable intellectual property. The article
aims at determining approaches to establishing protectability of foreign TV formats as copyrighted
works in different jurisdictions. To attain this end, the authors used formal-legal and comparative legal methods, as well as methods of legal modeling and historical analysis. Based on the study
results, the authors have developed the term "lex media" (media law) to denote the usages that
formed in the cross-border circulation of rights to TV formats and determined a list of the main
social relations regulated by lex media, its main sources and correlation with lex mercatoria. Due to
lex media, TV formats join not only positive copyrights, but also common format rights, and in the
transnational relations, TV formats are recognized as a quasi-copyrightable intellectual property.
Paper Details
PaperID: 2126
Author's Name: Oksana Lutkova and Anna Ananeva
Volume: Volume 11
Issues: Volume 11
Keywords: Copyright, International Private Law, Protectability, Classification, TV Format, Format of Audiovisual Work, Format Rights, Lex Mercatoria, Lex Media.
Year: 2021
Month: June
Pages: 525-540