The television producers Toni Cruz and Josep María Mainat have sued Veranda TV, the producer of the Eufòria format, broadcast by TV3, and the CCMA (Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation), the public entity that manages the channel, for alleged plagiarism of the program Operación Triunfo, a program that they created and premiered with enormous success on RTVE in 2001.
According to the creators of OT, this confrontation has been caused by “the extreme resemblance” between the essential elements of Eufòria and those that made the Operación Triunfo format famous. After analyzing the musical talent on TV3, one of the most watched programs on Catalan television with record audiences, Cruz and Mainat contacted the CCMA in order to obtain a satisfactory explanation for what they considered “a flagrant copy of their creation”, but, in the absence of answers, they decided to take legal action.
According to Cruz and Mainat, before filing the lawsuit, they made sure that their impression was corroborated by large sectors of the specialized press, by important figures in the television industry and by the analysis of experts in the field who, after the timely examination of both formats, they have concluded that Eufòria “is simply an Operación Triunfo in Catalan”, picks up the statement from the production company of Mainat and Cruz, Rest.TV.
“Eufòria reproduces, with tiny variations, all the essential elements, the mechanics, the phases and the original aspects of Operación Triunfo” assures Toni Cruz.
The lawsuit comes after several warnings to Veranda and the CCMA itself about the possible plagiarism of Operación Triunfo. Last summer Mainat already expressed his annoyance against the program, recalling that the talent of the Catalan public channel “copies the experience, the mechanics, the elements of the format, the set design, the characters and the terminology of our show, without acknowledging its authorship”. .
“So many television channels from all over the planet, that have signed up to the Operación Triunfo phenomenon, always respecting that the format is owned by a Catalan production company called Gestmusic. And respecting, above all, that the ideas, if they are foreign, do not it is worth copying them”, Mainat stated this summer in an open letter from both television producers, in which he recalled that “to avoid plagiarism and Intellectual Property conflicts, TV3 and the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation always ask production companies to prove the originality of the formats they present, or that they document that they legally have the rights to produce them”. Which, in his opinion, with this case “has not happened.”
Faced with what they consider to be carelessness on the part of TV3 and the CCMA, Mainat assures that OT “has been exported to more than 70 television channels around the world, and all have recognized our authorship.” “It is disconcerting that plagiarism happens precisely in Catalonia and on TV3”, he affirms.
Cruz and Mainat conclude that they hope that “this lawsuit will serve to promote creativity and ensure the originality of the new television formats, thus defending a right that should be sacred: the intellectual property of an idea belongs to its authors and no one can violate this right by passing off other people’s successes as their own creations”.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
