Audiovisual works, TV formats and multiple markets

Abstract

Program formats are increasingly playing a central role in television and multimedia.
Yet there is very little documentation and analysis of this important trend. This
Occasional Paper is the proceedings of a workshop held at Griffith University, Nathan
Campus, on 14 November under the auspices of the Australian UNESCO-Orbicom
Chair’s program in communications and is designed to facilitate discussion,
documentation and analysis of program formats. The workshop brought together
experts in copyright and television formats to look at formats and the trade in
international audio-visual rights. The workshop started from the recognition that the
TV format presents a vehicle for entrepreneurial producers and production companies
to extract intellectual property rents in different locations through the distribution and sale of formats licenses. It also recognized that there are significant problems in
securing legal protection for formats with there being little to no copyright protection
stoping program ideas being copied and sold on.