VITAMEDIAS
Could they be related? Can a television format be owned?
Instead, the creator of a format must try to enforce his or her copyright in the work underlying the format.
The US court heard evidence from Charlie Parsons, the owner of the rights to Survivor who said that he had started work on the show in 1992. He had pitched it to ABC in 1994 but years later it was bagged by CBS.
CBS called as an expert witness Syracuse University professor Robert Thompson who had analysed the show and saw numerous similarities between the programmes: both shows had worm-eating challenges. On Survivor the worm-eating was played seriously. But the Celebrity worm was served on fine china with hungry Uri Geller joking about his vegetarianism as he ate. CBS argued that this, and other examples, showed that Celebrity "imitates the distinctive style and the look and feel" of Survivor.