A man has sued RTE in the High Court claiming that RTE stole the
idea for a television show, Celebrity Bainsteoir. Patrick Kinsella
claims that he presented RTE with an idea for a show called Top
Coach or Top Team in August 2007. His idea was rejected at the time
by both RTE and TV3. Mr Kinsella later discovered that the
Celebrity Bainsteoir show was broadcast on RTE in November 2007.
RTE contend that they informed Mr Kinsella at a meeting in August
2007 that Celebrity Bainsteoir was about to go out on air. RTE says
that it was first approached about the show in 2004 by Setanta TV
and then finally took up the show from another production company
in 2006.
Section 17 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 provides
that copyright subsists in original literary, dramatic, musical or
artistic works. However, this section also provides that an idea
underpinning such a work does not enjoy copyright protection. An
idea must be expressed in some tangible form in order to
