The Copyright Protection Of The Variety Show Format

While the Copyright protection of the Television Program Format is a difficultproblem in Media and legal circle, the protection of Variety Show Format is the most.Format is not a legal definition, and the theory and practical concerns do not reach anagreement on what the format is. So almost countries deny the Copyright protectionof a Variety Show Format. This article starts form the creation process of a TV formatto conclude the meaning of the Variety show format, and finds the difficulties of theVariety show formats in Copyright protection by analyzing the relative cases, andrealizes the reason why it’s hard to protect the format. Finally this article is trying tofind the Variety Show Format viability of Copyright protection. The content is asfollowing:The frist part is the basic theory of Variety Show Format. This section beginswith the tease out the definition of the format and divides connotation into threecategories:“structure theory”,“element theory” and “compromise theory”, and theextension includes two views of paper formats and format packages. Next this sectionanalyses the creation process of the Variety Show Format, and points the weakness ofthe “structure theory” and the “element theory”, and in favor of the “compromisetheory”. Finally this section will concludes the feature of the Variety Show Format.The second part is about the necessary protection of the Variety Show Format.This section highlights the commercial and cultural value of the Variety Show Format,and the protection of the Variety Show Format can protect the interests of investors,maintain the competition of the TV industry. Meanwhile, the protection can encourageinnovation and meet the cultural needs of the audience.The third part is about the judicial practice. This section illustrates the situationof Copyright protection of the Variety Show Format: legislation vacancy, judicialdisagreement and the promoting effect of industry protection association. And then itanalyses the typical cases of UK, USA, Holland, Brazil and Chinese, illustrates theopinion of the judges. Thirdly it points out that the difficulties of Copyright protectionof Variety Show Format lies in the vague of the nature of the Variety Show Formatand the issue of Copyright infringement.The fourth part concerns about the feasibility of Copyright protection of VarietyShow Format. This section begins with the analysis of the reason why Variety Show Format has the difficulty in Copyright protection, mainly includes that the court ofalmost the infringement cases tended to view the Variety Show Format as thetraditional literary or dramatic work and not distinguished between the paper formatand the program format, and holds that the Variety Show Format should be protectedin the light of its forms. Then it states the paper format has the possible of Copyrightprotection for the recent verdict acknowledgment it as literary work. Next this sectionstates that the Variety Show Format matches the conditions of the work and should beprotected as cinematographic work.The fifth part involves the Copyright infringement test. This section firstly pointsout that the protection of paper formats lies in the compilation of ideas and stockelements, so it must be protected overall, and then it can apply the“abstraction-filtration-dissection test” to decide whether the two works are substantialsimilarity. Secondly this section points out that only the parts of Variety Show formatthat the authors have control over can actually be protected. And then it states thecourts can apply the “extrinsic-intrinsic distinction” to judge whether the two VarietyShows’similarity beyond the lawful appropriation.