Riverdance: Kelly takes steps to settle

A week after he reported that Irish fashion designer Jen Kelly was suing Riverdance duo Moya Doherty and John McColgan for unauthorised use of his designs, the IPKat can now tell his readers that Kelly's action has been withdrawn. According to Tim Healy, writing in today's Irish Independent, Kelly

"...dramatically withdrew his legal claim against the 'Riverdance' producers after a compromise was reached.

Jen Kelly ... claimed he had been "airbrushed out of history" by the world famous dance and music sensation. ... Mr Kelly sought €820,000 damages, alleging he had not been given proper credit for his work and his designs were used and altered without his consent ...

But [he] yesterday decided to accept that producers did not use costumes he had designed, nor copies of them, in live performances of 'Riverdance' after December 31, 2001.

It was unclear last night whether money had changed hands ahead of the settlement.
Afterwards Mr Kelly said he was "delighted that I can get back to what I do best, designing clothes". ...

[Kelly] claimed the defendants breached a November 1999 agreement not to use his costume designs in 'Riverdance the Show' after December 31, 2001. It was in 1999 that Mr Kelly was informed that another designer, Joan Bergin, would be used for the costumes in a new show on Broadway. The defendants had denied the claims.

And yesterday, on the third day of the hearing, Mr Justice John MacMenamin was told that there had been a compromise in the proceedings. ... The judge struck out the action which had been estimated to run for two weeks.

... Joan Bergin, the designer who took over the 'Riverdance' costume work, said: "I'm mightily relieved for every costume designer who works in theatre, otherwise we'd just spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders."

Last week the court had heard that Mr Kelly agreed to design costumes for 'Riverdance the Show' following the success of the performance at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. As the show's popularity expanded, an agreement was entered into in October 1996 between 'Riverdance' and Mr Kelly. As part of that agreement Mr Kelly received a royalty payment of £60 per performance -- but difficulties later arose .... The difficulties culminated in an agreement in December 1999 under which Mr Kelly was to receive a payment and his costume designs would be used in the shows up until the end of December 2001 ...".

The IPKat feels a little sorry for the legal teams involved, who must have blanked a fortnight out of their respective diaries in the anticipation of some interesting, instructive, lucrative and publicity-rich court work. Merpel says, if you get rid of all the repeated bits, couldn't you have choreographed the two-week trial down to about three days?

Traditional Irish dancing here and here
How to dance an Irish jig here ("Be careful not to fall when standing on one foot or hopping")
Fitness and health issues for Irish dancers here and here

Costume and practice: new suits for Riverdance duo

Ireland's Sunday Business Post reports that Riverdance duo Moya Doherty and John McColgan are being sued by fashion designer Jen Kelly for using his designs without permission; Kelly is also reported to be seeking royalties on Riverdance's profits. The two are offering a vigorous and no doubt immaculately choreographed if ear-splitting defence to the claims when they appear live in the Irish High Court later this week. According to the news report,

"Kelly designed and made hundreds of outfits that were used in the Riverdance shows in the mid-1990s. After receiving initial design fees for the show costumes, Kelly claimed he was paid about €60 in royalties per performance until 2001.

Kelly has claimed Riverdance continued to use and modify his designs without licence or payment. McColgan and Doherty claimed an agreement was reached in November 1999 under which the designer accepted a substantial sum to finalise his involvement.

McColgan said there was never "any unauthorised exploitation of Kelly’s designs by Riverdance". He said Kelly’s designs had not been used since 2001".

The IPKat looks forward to learning more about the legal grounds of the claim. Merpel wonders if there is any country in the world in which, in the absence of a licence, the live performance by a person wearing a costume could infringe either the design right or the copyright in that item of clothing. Says Tufty, I bet the judge doesn't fall asleep in this trial ...

Riverdance in response to the Haka here
Dancing cats here and here

Design protection in Italy: some good news for originators

The IPKat's friend Giovanni Casucci has sent him some hot news from Italy, which he is happy to share with you. It goes like this:

"On 30 June 2008, Mr Marangoni, Judge of the Specialised Section in Intellectual and Industrial Property of the Court of Milan, confirmed the previous seizure and injunction orders issued on 29 December 2006 with regard to Semeraro.

This order is of the utmost importance in light of earlier judicial decisions which, on the contrary, denied the precautionary measures that had been originally granted (see the case of the Panton chair from Vitra, depicted below) following the enactment of a new provision.

On 7 April 2007, Law 46/2007 implemented within the Italian system a position according to which the protection of copyright “does not apply to products accomplished according to designs and models which, before the date of entry into force of the legislative decree dated 2 February 2001 No. 95, were or had become of public property.”

This formulation has caused some case law to base its rulings on the (overturned) non-existence of copyrights for design works created before 2001. The first company which suffered from such position was Vitra, which in December 2007 saw the revocation of the originally granted seizure, with the consequence that, during the “Salone del Mobile” fair, held in 2008, newspapers and leaflets reproducing slavish imitations of well known design works indicated the lawfulness of such copies, derived from the new Italian regulation.

Flos, despite such events, has resisted and fought against such regulation, which has been defined as “aberrant” by its attorney Giovanni F. Casucci, avoiding the huge economic loss caused by imitators to some other competitors. Flos has succeeded in preserving the originally granted position, convincing the judge of the fact that the new regulation totally contrasts with the higher Community and international regulations. Today, thanks to Flos, both Italian and foreign design companies can hope for successful protection of their icons of design in Italy".

Having recently attended ACID's tenth anniversary celebration in London (see post here), the IPKat is acutely aware of the hardships faced by furniture designers and manufacturers in seeking to preserve the integrity of their creative output in the face of competition from infringers and imitators who have not incurred their initial costs and who take little commercial risk since they only copy the designs that are popular enough to sell well. He is pleased to see that the position has improved so greatly in Italy. Merpel's quite concerned, though -- every time she curls up on one of those Panton chairs she just keeps sliding off it ...