Comedian loses lawsuit against baby cow because of ‘copied’ sitcom
Comedian Harry Deansway has lost his case against Steve Coogan’s production company Baby Cow over a sitcom he claims infringed his copyright.
A judge at London’s High Court has ruled that the Baby Cow series ‘Live at the Moth Club’, which ran for one season on UKTV in 2022, was not a copy of Deansway’s 2013 YouTube series ‘Shambles’.
A two-day civil trial took place in November 2024, during which comedians including ‘The Windsors’ star Ellie White and ‘Jurassic World Dominion’ duo Alexander Owen and Ben Ashenden, who contributed to ‘Live at the Moth Club’, testified on behalf of Baby-koe. The trio said any coincidences between the two shows, which both mixed stand-up sets with sitcom styles, were coincidental.
Supreme Court Recorder Amanda Michaels ultimately agreed with that assessment.
Deansway, who brought the case under his legal name Joshua Rinkoff, had alleged that Baby Cow comedy head Rupert Majendie, with whom he had had both a social and professional relationship over the course of their comedy career, had left the show had copied. Majendie and Baby Cow vigorously disputed the claim.
Coogan was not named in the lawsuit and there is no indication he was involved in ‘Live at the Moth Club’.
In her ruling, Michaels said: “I find that the format of Mr. Rinkoff’s series was not protected as a copyrighted work. If I had discovered that such a copyright existed, I would at least have found that the defendant was not infringing it [Baby Cow].”
Coogan co-founded Baby Cow with producer Henry Normal in 1998 before selling a majority stake to BBC Studios. He remained as minority shareholder and creative director, while Sarah Monteith, CEO of Baby Cow, managed the day-to-day running of the company.
This is what a Baby Cow spokesperson said Variety: “We are pleased that the court has ruled that ‘Live At The Moth Club’ is a completely original work with creative input from a number of people who had never heard of ‘Shambles’ or its creator. The claim was defended on that basis and the judge finally ruled in Baby Cow’s favor on all counts.”
Variety contacted Rinkoff.
