Comedian Harry Deansway loses his copyright case

Comedian Harry Deansway has lost his court case alleging that the Dave series Live At The Moth Club ripped off his ideas.

The stand-up had claimed that producers Baby Cow had ‘blatantly’ ripped off the idea for the 2022 show, combining on-stage performances with scripted comedy about the running of a down-at-heel comedy club, from his 2013 web series Shambles.  

But passing judgment, high court recorder Amanda Michaels said the format of Deansway’s series was ‘was not protected as a copyright work,’ adding: ‘Had I found there to be any such copyright, I would in any event have found that it was not infringed by the defendant.’

Her ruling was published today following a two-day trial that took place in November

In it, she explained: ‘The similarities between the shows identified by the claimant [Deansway] do not seem to me to raise an inference of copying. The main complaint is that LATMC [Live At The Moth Club] is set in an almost identical setting (a run-down comedy venue) and combines scenes of real comedians performing on stage with backstage scenes featuring a range of fictional characters. 

‘In my judgment LATMC may have the same central underlying idea as Shambles, but that does not by itself lead to any inference that the pleaded format of Shambles has been copied as a whole or in substantial part.

‘The overall premise of LATMC is much less evidently a sitcom and much more a faux documentary than Shambles, that difference being reinforced by the backstage characters of LATMC being aware of the camera and speaking directly to camera, generally in a deadpan manner.’

During the case, Baby Cow’s lawyers suggested Deansway – who sued under his real name Joshua Rinkoff – ‘had lost all sense of perspective in relation to the dispute and was, as a result  ready to make unfounded allegations of copying not supported by the documentation’.

The recorder said she found that Rinkoff ‘was essentially an honest witness’, but added: ‘I agree that he had lost any real objectivity about this case’ – such as making ‘irrelevant’ claims about the behaviour of producer Rupert Majendie, who created the series. She also criticised Rinkoff’s ‘lack of clarity’ about the timeline of the production of Shambles.

Deansway had claimed Majendie, head of comedy at Baby Cow, and the show’s writers must have been aware of his web series. However the recorder pointed out that series 1 of Shambles only received about 2,000 views over nine years.

Writers Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen – collectively known as the double act The Pin –  and comic Ellie White – told the court they had  not been aware of Shambles before the case was brought. ‘I believed them,’ Michaels said

Deansway and Majendie previously worked together on the comedy circuit, and in his legal filing, Deansway said he pitched an earlier version of the idea to Majendie when he was working at the BBC ‘which he liked enough to put it forward to his boss’.

In court papers, he added: ‘Rupert very well might have had the idea to set a sitcom in a comedy club but having worked with him I do not believe that he has the creative vision or technical skills to come up with the filmic language to tell that story and present that content on the screen.’

However recorder Michaels said: ‘The filmic style adopted for Shambles was also said to be an essential feature of the framework of the show, but this feature appears to me to be so loosely described as to be virtually meaningless. Certainly, it is not particularly distinctive.’

She added that there was ‘insufficient identification of the attributes of the principal characters and a complete absence of plotline’ in Shambles that ‘does not meet the criteria for copyright protection. 

Majendie, pictured above at the Moth Club with star Mark Heap, testified that any similarities between the two series were a coincidence and denied there was any possible crossover.

Recorder Michaels said that from his evidence she believed Majendie ‘had watched some of Shambles some years before making LATMC. On the other hand, I accept his evidence that he did not have Shambles in mind when he conceived the idea of LATMC.’

 A spokesperson for Baby Cow said: ‘We’re pleased that the court has ruled that Live At The Moth Club is a wholly original work that had creative input from a number of people who had never previously heard of Shambles or its creator. The claim was defended on that basis and the judge has found conclusively in Baby Cow’s favour on all issues.’

And Deansway told Chortle: ‘ I'm disappointed with the judgment and will be looking into options for appealing.’

Deansway previously ran The Fix comedy magazine, which left him with a £30,000 debt, and was briefly comedy editor of The Guardian Guide. He subsequently ran the video site Raybot – which distributed the Shambles series.

Published: 17 Jan 2025