Fictional lawyer Gawdenz Bilocca becomes subject of court case

The fictional TV character, lawyer Gawdenz Bilocca, has ended up in a real court case, as the subject of a tussle over copyright.

Theatre and TV production company Bronk Productions Limited has taken actor Fabian Scerri De Carlo and author Frederick Camilleri to court, alleging that they were breaching copyright.

Bronk Production's directors Benny Casha and Pierre Bonello had filed the case in the First Hall of the Civil Court, telling judge Jacqueline Padovani Grima that the character of bumbling lawyer Gawdenz Bilocca had been developed from another fictional lawyer, Gawdenz Spadaru, a creation of Casha's grandfather, who featured in local theatre years ago.

The plaintiffs had collaborated with Scerri De Carlo and Camilleri on the TV series and had been paid for this. But a year after the creative partnership ended in 2007 , Bronk Productions had learned that Scerri De Carlo had trademarked the character and was advertising a future production involving the character.

Casha and Bonello argued that they had invested €160,000 in the character of Gawdenz Bilocca and insisted that neither Scerri De Carlo nor Camilleri had any rights over it.

Scerri De Carlo had rebutted the allegation of copyright infringement, saying that he had created the Gawdenz Bilocca character, which he insisted was a different character to that of Gawdenz Spadaru, who had different mannerisms and appearance to Bilocca.

He had registered the Gawdenz Bilocca trademark under his name in 2007, he said, adding that Bronk had also recognized him as the character's creator and had never objected to the business he had built around the character.

Camilleri, too, insisted that the character was the fruit of collaborative effort between Scerri De Carlo and himself, that was not the same as the Gawdenz Spadaru theatre character of years past.

After hearing a number of witnesses involved in the production broadcast media and theatre production, as well as having seen filmed performances involving Gawdenz Spadaru, judge Padovani Grima held that the character was not subject to copyright, noting that the character had been so peripheral that she had trouble recognising it, at first.

The Gawdenz Bilocca character was clearly distinct, both in his appearance, as well as in his mannerisms and played a central role in the performances.

On the rights to the character, the court noted that Scerri De Carlo had taken a number of initiaives to develop the character commercially, introducing soft toys, colouring books, CDs, figolli and keychains bearing the Gawdenz Bilocca image.

The judge dismissed the case, ruling that although Bronk Productions LTD had paid the defendants, this had been for writing services related to the series and did not mean that they had ceded their rights over the character.