Sam Carter represented the applicant in the recent Crushcov v Hyland, Richardson & SKY [2025] EWHC 1117 (Ch) judgment.
This case concerned the alleged plagiarisation of various unpublished scripts and other materials in the creation and production of 3 season TV series Britannia. Unusually, it was not framed as a claim for copyright infringement – instead, the Claimant alleged conspiracy to cause loss by unlawful means – the means relied upon (initially) including inter alia theft, breach of confidence, and passing off (but not copyright infringement). In essence, the Claimant alleged that an acquaintance of his had stolen his scripts/materials, and passed them on to the creator of Britannia, and that they were then adapted for use in the show as aired. The claim was brought against the acquaintance, the creator of Britannia, and Sky. All three (successfully) applied for strike out/summary judgment in advance of service of Defences. The claimant’s claims of conspiracy/combination were largely inferential, based on alleged similarities between the scripts, and the Judge found that the clusters of similarity put forward by the claimant:
“are couched in a language with a high level of generality. That is a problem. Not only are the stories that are told in the claimant’s script and the Butterworths’ scripts completely different, but the descriptions of the similarities are so general that they could apply to a great many things which do not resemble each other in any significant way. And that is without even considering the possibility of coincidence. After all, all the scripts… are written against the same historical background: the invasion of Britain by the Romans in 43 AD”.
Click the link to read the judgment
