In a digital society, there is an ongoing process of updating the types of intellectual property rights, which includes the television format (henceforth, TV format).
This thesis is one of the first comprehensive monographic studies in the national science that identifies theoretical and practical issues of legal regulation of TV formats at the international and national levels, namely, the legal nature of the TV format is defined, its elements are analysed, and the features that make it possible to classify it as a complex object of intellectual property rights with a mixed legal nature, to determine the means of protection of proprietary rights, are identified. Based on the results of the study, the author formulates a number of theoretical provisions and conclusions.
Chapter 1 "Development of the Category of "Format" in Intellectual Property Law" outlines the genesis of the category of television format and the term "format", the stages of their development, describes the areas in which "format" arises and is used, and analyses the international and national experience of legal regulation of TV formats.
It is established that the term "format" develops in parallel with technological progress depending on the scope of application, and it is evolving, acquiring the features of a legal category in the conceptual framework of legal science which requires its own examination. Thus, while initially the term "format" was used exclusively in the sense of a special differentiator of the size, appearance or structure of an object, later it began to refer to various processes and phenomena, and such concepts as a radio format, TV format, analogue or digital format, the format of escape rooms, sports games, television channels, the format of presentation of journalistic materials on the Internet (long read) became widely used.
The author suggests that the TV format was created due to the separation of the media industry as a sphere of production and distribution of television, cinema, and radio content. For the first time, the author identifies four main stages which are directly related to the legal regulation of creation, distribution, and assignment of property rights to the TV format: Stage I (from 1950 to 1970) - appearance, adaptation and glocalization of formats; Stage II (from 1970 to 1980) - formation of the scientific doctrine on the legal nature of formats; Stage III (from 1980 to 1990) - solving the problems of format protection (court practice, the establishment of non-governmental organizations in this area, in particular, FRAPA, etc. ); IV stage (from 1990 to the present) – globalization of formats and application of contractual structures that determine the process of creation, use and disposal of property rights to a TV format.
The author determines the place of the TV format among other objects of intellectual property rights. The author examines the protectable (legally significant) and utilitarian (legally irrelevant, not subject to protection) elements of the format, and proposes qualifications for their various types.
For the first time, the author has classified the processes that determine the civil turnover of the TV format, namely adaptation, glocalization, and globalization. It is argued that adaptation involves modifying or adapting the basic TV format to the national particulars of the country in which the audiovisual work (television program) created on its basis will be broadcast. The right of adaptation is exercised by the parties through a licence agreement, under which the licensor grants the licensee the right to change certain elements of the TV format or supplement it with new elements. In this way, the original work – a television program – is adapted at the local level and the licensee creates a derivative work – an adapted audiovisual work (television program).
It is established that since the 50s of the last century, most countries of the world have tried, based on research by scholars, to ensure legal protection of TV formats at the legislative level. However, the failure to achieve unity in clarifying the legal nature of the TV format, and hence the inability to determine the legal mechanism which would ensure the protection of rights to this object, explain the fact that in modern conditions, the TV format at the level of national legislation of different countries of the world is protected either by the norms of intellectual property law or by the norms of other branches of law.
