The High Court awarded €150,000 in damages to Tommy Fleming, Tina Mitchell Fleming and TF Productions Limited after finding that Irish TV broadcast Fleming’s “Voice of Hope” recording without authority. The court said an injunction made under earlier orders would continue and left the form of the order to be drawn up after hearing counsel’s submissions.
In a judgment delivered on 26 July 2017, Mr Justice Paul Gilligan awarded €100,000 to Fleming and his wife, Tina Mitchell Fleming, for infringement of intellectual property rights they owned. He awarded TF Productions Limited €50,000 as a contribution towards money it had spent minimising its losses, allowing for the benefit of the total amount disbursed.
The damages application followed earlier proceedings in which injunctive relief had already been granted. The defendant, Teilifís Mhaigh Eo Teoranta, trading as Irish TV, took no further part after a liquidator was appointed. The judgment records that the company was wound up on 20 December 2016. The application before the court was for damages only.
The plaintiffs said a DVD of “Voice of Hope” had been sent to Irish TV for review in April 2014 to facilitate a possible licensing arrangement. They maintained that the DVD prohibited broadcasting or copying and that industry practice required a higher-quality beta tape for a broadcast. They said Irish TV aired the recording twice under the programme-guide title “Tommy Fleming Musical Extravaganza”, without a licence. A third scheduled broadcast was cancelled after they objected.
The judgment described the plaintiffs’ claims about lost sales, reduced licensing fees, damage to Fleming’s reputation and additional marketing and production costs. It recorded evidence that annual sales had been around 3,500 units before the broadcasts and fell to 1,500 in 2015, while a new edition released that year sold 6,500 copies. The plaintiffs also said they could not quantify the broadcasts’ audience.
The judge found that Irish TV had infringed the plaintiffs’ intellectual property rights by broadcasting Fleming’s work without authority or notice. He accepted evidence that the broadcasts damaged Fleming’s career and professional standing, and that the plaintiffs had spent additional sums to limit the harm. The judgment says the recording was broadcast from a sampling DVD rather than a beta tape, resulting in multiple unlawful poor recordings. The damages decision addressed the plaintiffs’ application; the court said it would hear counsel on the wording of the order.