Netflix is suing the creators of The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical, Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear for copyright and trademark infringement. At The Kennedy Center in New York City on July 26, the duo hosted a live performance of the Grammy Award-winning musical CD.
The claim in the complaint is that the businesses of defendants Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, together known as “Barlow & Bear,” appropriated significant intellectual property from the Netflix original series Bridgerton. “Netflix has the exclusive right to create musicals, songs, and other derivative works based on Bridgerton. That right, which has value because of the work of others, cannot be used by Barlow & Bear for their benefit. But that is just what they did.”
The popular sitcom TikTok song spoof by Barlow and Bear went viral last year. Later, it was released as an album in September 2021, and it won the Best Musical Theater Album Grammy Award at the 2022 Grammy Awards.
According to the lawsuit filed by Netflix, the band copied “liberally and practically identically from Bridgerton across several original elements of expression” in their songs, including “plot, pace, order of events, tone, setting, and themes.”
According to Netflix’s complaint, they informed the band repeatedly that “such works were not authorized” and that “at every step of the way, Barlow & Bear’s representatives repeatedly assured Netflix that they understood Netflix’s position and led Netflix to believe that Netflix would be consulted before Barlow & Bear took steps beyond streaming their album online in audio-only format.”
According to the lawsuit, “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical by Barlow & Bear has not been authorized by Netflix, Shondaland, or Julia Quinn.” Furthermore, Netflix has never authorized Barlow & Bear to create “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical,” stage a live performance of it, including at the Kennedy Center or Royal Albert Hall, or create new derivative works based on the Bridgerton intellectual property.
Barlow and Bear’s representative claims that Netflix also instructed them to forgo “any live performances” and “any derivative works that would conflict with Netflix’s planned events.”
