Comic is left with £61k courtroom invoice after dropping copyright battle with Steve Coogan’s manufacturing firm over claims it pinched format of his YouTube present
A comedian who sued Steve Coogan‘s production company over claims it copied his groundbreaking YouTube show has been handed a devastating £61,000 court bill after losing in the High Court.
Harry Deansway claimed Mr Coogan’s Baby Cow Productions stole the format of his show ‘Shambles’, repurposing it for Baby Cow’s 2022 series ‘Live at the Moth Club.’
Mr Deansway – real name Joshua Rinkoff – said the two shows bear striking similarities, both featuring a blend of actual stand-up with a sitcom set in a real-life comedy club.
But Baby Cow fought the High Court claim, arguing that their show – a mockumentary broadcast on TV channel, Dave – is not a copy of Shambles.
They also claimed Mr Deansway’s show was not original but reproduced ideas already used in comedy classics including Seinfeld and The Muppet Show.
Recorder Amanda Michaels last week threw out Mr Deansway’s claim and has now ordered him to foot Baby Cow’s lawyers’ bills to a total of £61,000.

Harry Deansway, real name Joshua Rinkoff, pictured outside the High Court where he brought a case against Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow Productions

Baby Cow, co-founded by Mr Coogan, argued that Shambles was not original at all and their show was different
She said an ‘enormous amount of money’ had been spent on the dispute, but court rules in intellectual property cases limited Mr Deansway’s bill to £61,000.
At the High Court in November, the judge heard that Mr Deansway’s Shambles show was based on his own experiences as a promoter in a London comedy club.
Broadcast in two series on YouTube in 2013 and 2015, it featured a blend of real life stand-up comedy with a sitcom based backstage and involving the performers.
His lawyers argued that Shambles is protected as a ‘dramatic work’ under the Copyright Designs and Patent Act 1988 and that his copyright had been infringed by Baby Cow’s ‘Moth Club’.

Baby Cow is home to many comedies, including the much-loved Alan Partridge
Barrister, Dr Timothy Sampson, said Mr Deansway had identified 170 similarities between the two shows, which ‘simply could not all have arisen by coincidence.’
They included the setting in a real comedy club, blending of live acts with sitcom elements, the use of a fly-on-the-wall documentary style and numerous ‘parallel characters.’
There were also ‘similar/identical running jokes’ in the two shows, including the owner of the club attempting to fix the dilapidated state of it.
Giving evidence, Mr Deansway said taking on such a big name player as Mr Coogan’s company had dire consequences for his comedy career.
‘As a result of the legal action, I have been ostracized from the comedy industry,’ he said in his evidence.
‘I am no longer invited to various comedians’ parties and in general am out of the comedy loop. It is not considered the done thing to stand up to a big production company.’
Lawyers for Baby Cow argued that their show had ‘evidently not been copied from the other’ and in her judgment Recorder Michaels found in the company’s favour.
She found that the ‘format’ of Mr Deansway’s show was not protected by copyright and, even if it had been, she would not have found it infringed by Baby Cow.
‘The alleged similarities between the characters of the managers/owners of the clubs and their useless assistants do not seem to me to suggest copying so much as the use of stock characters,’ she said.
‘The incompetence of most of the sitcom characters in both shows seems to me to be a stock comedic device, as competence is rarely funny.
‘In all the circumstances, I do not consider that there are grounds to draw an inference that LATMC was copied from Shambles.
‘For all of these reasons, the claim fails.’

Live at the Moth Club is set in a run-down comedy club. Pictured: Seb Cardinal (left) and Dustin Demri-Burns (right), who appeared in the Baby Cow show

Mr Rinkoff said the series bore a striking similarity to his web series, Shambles (pictured), which is also set in a run-down comedy club. But his High Court claim failed
In a follow-up hearing yesterday, Recorder Michaels went on to rule that Mr Deansway is liable for Baby Cow’s costs of fighting the trial.
‘They clearly are the winning party and are entitled to their costs,’ she said.
The court heard Baby Cow’s cost of fighting the case amounted to well over £100,000, but that court rules limit the order against Mr Deansway to £60,000, plus £1,000 in extra fees.