On Netflix they are very happy with ‘The Bridgertons’, since it is one of their most watched series and they still have material for many more seasons. However, not everything is going to be happy, since the streaming platform has just been involved in a legal battle because of an unauthorized ‘The Bridgertons’ musical.
What’s going on with the musical?
What has happened is that the streaming company has filed a lawsuit in Washington DC against the authors of ‘The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical’ for copyright infringement by trying to get “multiple sources of income without formal permission to use the Bridgerton brand“.
From Netflix it is argued that they tried to reach an agreement with Abigail Barlow and Emily Bearcreators of the musical, but that “they refused to cooperate. The creators, cast, writers and crew have poured their hearts and souls into ‘The Bridgertons’ and we are taking action to protect their rights.“.
One of the main problems is that the musical includes dialogue identical to that of the series and many more characteristic elements of ‘The Bridgertons’, also implying that they have permission to do so. However, the key is that they are also doing performances with tickets for up to $ 149 and supposedly they also have in mind launching a line of merchandising.
Shonda Rhimesproducer of the Netflix series -whose second season is one of the best series on the platform in 2022-, has not hesitated to comment on the matter in the following terms, also making it even clearer that the problem is that Barlow & Bear want profit from all this:
What started as a fun celebration by Barlow & Bear on social media has turned into a brazen appropriation of intellectual property solely for Barlow & Bear’s financial gain. This property was created by Julia Quinn and brought to the screen thanks to the hard work of countless people. Just as Barlow & Bear would not allow others to appropriate its intellectual property for profit, Netflix cannot sit idly by and allow Barlow & Bear to do the same to “Bridgerton.”
We’ll see how all this turns out, but Everything indicates that Netflix may end up crushing Barlow & Bear…