The Supreme Court confirms that Atresmedia cannot broadcast 'Pasapalabra's El Rosco

The Supreme Court has today confirmed the ruling that forces Atresmedia to stop broadcasting El Rosco, the famous final test of the quiz show Pasapalabra. Justice considers that the test constitutes a work protected by intellectual property, the ownership of which corresponds to the Dutch company MC&F and not to ITV, the producer that licenses the broadcast rights of the quiz show. The court, furthermore, imposes compensation for moral damages of 50,000 euros to MC&F, considering that Atresmedia has infringed intellectual property rights.

After the ruling was made public, Antena 3 has stated that it will continue broadcasting the quiz show and is studying what to do with the program's final test. Sources from Pasapalabra have assured EFE that they will continue broadcasting "normally" until they are notified of the Supreme Court's ruling and know the deadlines for the process. In any case, they recall that the justice's decision only affects the program's final test and not the quiz show in its entirety, which is why the broadcast of Pasapalabra should not be altered.

Currently, Antena 3 broadcasts Pasapalabra thanks to an agreement with the British channel ITV, which holds the rights to the quiz show, but not to the test known as El Rosco. With this ruling, the Supreme Court upholds the resolution of the Provincial Court of Barcelona in 2022, which obliged Antena 3 to stop broadcasting the quiz and concluded that the creators of El Rosco were Reto Luigi Pianta and René Mauricio Loeb, who assigned their rights to MC&F. Since Atresmedia, the group that owns Antena 3, appealed to the Supreme Court, the quiz has continued to be part of Pasapalabra normally from 2022 until now.

The program in dispute, a copy of the Italian show Passaparola, premiered on Spanish television in 2000: Antena 3 broadcast it until 2006, but a year later it moved to Telecinco. Pasapalabra was already the subject of an initial legal dispute that was resolved in October 2019, when the Supreme Court obliged Telecinco to stop broadcasting the program after losing the lawsuit that the network had filed in 2010 against ITV, following a dispute with that production company. After its victory in the courts, ITV assigned the rights to the program to Atresmedia, and Antena 3 resumed broadcasting it on May 13, 2020.