10 Huge TV Shows That Have Been Sued For Being Complete Rip-Offs
3. The Voice
Emmy award winning singing competition The Voice is now franchised in 49 different countries across the globe, establishing itself as a big name in the reality TV genre, though the show’s supposedly unique format was stolen according to a County Meath man named Roy Barry.
In 2008, the Irishman conceived an idea for a TV show called Voice of America on which contestants would be judged solely on their singing voices (rather than by their appearance, which seemed to be the case with every other TV talent show at the time) by having them perform behind screens out of view from the panel. Soon after, he registered the idea on California-based website The TV Writers Vault.
The following year, a Netherlands-based company named TEG viewed Barry’s pitch on the website, but went bust soon after and were bought out by Talpa Holding. Talpa immediately registered the domain names voiceofgermany.com and voiceofholland.com, with the latter appearing on Dutch TV just a year later in 2010.
Barry’s case was heard in a California court in 2015 but the millions of dollars he sought in compensation for the theft of his original idea were not forthcoming, with Judge Richard A. Stone of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County dismissing the case and allowing the defendants to appeal for their costs.