A regional broadcaster commissions a cooking competition. The format is distinct: a heritage-ingredients challenge, a blindfolded tasting round, an elimination ritual tied to a specific cultural gesture. The show performs. Audiences connect. Then, six months later, a competitor launches something that looks remarkably familiar — same structure, different name, new presenter.
This is not a hypothetical. It is one of the most persistent and costly problems in Arabic television production. And in most cases, the producer who created the original has very little legal recourse — not because the law failed them, but because they never built a legally defensible format in the first place.
Format rights in the Arab world are poorly understood, inconsistently documented, and routinely undervalued. This article explains what format rights actually are, why copyright alone does not protect them, and what producers, broadcasters, and studios in the MENA region need to do differently.
What Are Format Rights — and Why Do They Matter?
A television format is the underlying structure of a show: its rules, its recurring segments, its visual identity, its competitive mechanics, and the repeatable framework that makes the program recognisable regardless of who is presenting it or which territory it airs in.
Format rights are the intellectual property rights that attach to that structure. They determine who can reproduce, adapt, license, or sell the format — in a new territory, a new language, or on a new platform.
Globally, format rights have become enormous commercial assets. According to FRAPA (the Format Recognition and Protection Association), the international trade in television formats generates billions of dollars annually, with formats like MasterChef, The Voice, and Deal or No Deal licensing to dozens of territories each. The format — not the individual episodes — is what gets sold.
In the Arab world, this model has historically worked in one direction: regional broadcasters license Western formats and adapt them locally. MBC's Arab Idol (licensed from Pop Idol), Arabs Got Talent (licensed from Got Talent), and The Voice Arabia (licensed from The Voice) are all examples of the region importing format IP created elsewhere.
The shift now underway is significant. Arabic-language original formats — created in the MENA region, for the MENA region — are beginning to attract serious international interest. As production budgets grow, as platforms like Shahid and Netflix commission Arabic originals, and as Saudi Vision 2030 accelerates media investment, locally developed formats are becoming genuinely valuable IP assets.
The legal infrastructure to protect them, however, has not kept pace.
The Core Problem: Copyright Does Not Protect Format Ideas
This is the single most important legal concept for any producer in the Arab world to understand.
Copyright protects the specific expression of an idea — not the idea itself.
Under international copyright frameworks — including the Berne Convention, to which both Lebanon and the UAE are party — the moment a creative work is fixed in a tangible form, it attracts copyright protection automatically. A script, a pilot episode, a written treatment: all of these are protected as soon as they exist.
But the underlying concept — a cooking competition set in the Levant, featuring heritage ingredients and a regional elimination mechanic — is not protectable by copyright. It is an idea. And ideas, under copyright law, belong to no one.
This distinction matters enormously in practice. A competitor who launches a show with a broadly similar premise but different scripts, different visuals, and different episode titles has not necessarily infringed your copyright. They have taken your idea — which they are legally entitled to do.
Lebanon's Copyright Law (Law No. 75 of 1999 on the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works) and the UAE's updated copyright framework (Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2021 on Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights) both follow this principle. Neither law creates any specific mechanism for format protection. You cannot register a "format" the way you register a trademark. There is no official format rights registry in Lebanon, the UAE, or across the GCC.
This is not a gap unique to the Arab world — it is a feature of copyright law globally. The difference is that established international format markets have developed sophisticated contractual and IP layering strategies to compensate. Most producers in the MENA region have not.
How Format Rights Are Actually Protected: The Layered IP Approach
Because copyright alone is insufficient, effective format protection requires building multiple, overlapping layers of intellectual property. This is what the major international formats do — and what MENA producers need to start doing.
The Format Bible
The Format Bible is the foundational document of any protectable television format. It is a comprehensive, confidential written record of everything that makes the show what it is: the rules of each segment, the visual design logic, the tone and language conventions, the production runsheet, the technical specifications, and the narrative mechanics that define the viewer experience.
The Format Bible does attract copyright protection — as a specific, detailed written work. The more detailed and distinctive it is, the stronger the copyright claim. Critically, it also functions as the primary document in any format licensing agreement: it is what gets delivered when a format is sold to a new territory.
Producers who do not have a Format Bible are not just legally exposed — they are commercially locked out of the international licensing market entirely.
Trademark Registration for Distinctive Elements
Trademarks protect names, logos, slogans, and other signs that identify the commercial origin of a product or service. In the context of television formats, trademark registration is frequently more commercially useful than copyright for one simple reason: it is faster to enforce.
A format's title, its recurring segment names, its catchphrases, and its distinctive graphic overlays can all be registered as trademarks. In Lebanon, trademark registration is handled by the Lebanese Ministry of Economy and Trade under the trademark provisions of Legislative Decree No. 2385 of 1924. In the UAE, registration falls under the Ministry of Economy's IP Department pursuant to Federal Decree-Law No. 36 of 2021 on Trademarks.
Each distinctive sub-element of a format — a named challenge, a signature reveal mechanism, a branded studio prop — can be separately registered. This approach transforms a single format into a portfolio of individually protectable IP assets, making replication significantly harder for competitors.
Trade Dress and Visual Identity
Trade dress refers to the overall visual presentation of a product or service — in this context, the signature look and feel of a format's production design. The specific configuration of the studio set, the distinctive lighting logic, the arrangement of symbolic props, and the graphic identity of on-screen elements can all constitute protectable trade dress if they are sufficiently distinctive and consistently applied.
Trade dress claims are harder to establish and enforce than trademark claims, but they are important in high-value disputes. The rotating red chairs of The Voice are an internationally recognised example: they function as both a visual identifier and a trade dress asset.
In the MENA context, producers who invest in a distinctive, repeatable visual language for their format — and document it carefully — are building evidence for potential trade dress claims.
Confidentiality Agreements
Before any format concept is pitched to a broadcaster, platform, or co-production partner, it should be protected by a confidentiality agreement (NDA). This is not merely a precaution — it is the legal mechanism that allows a producer to share their concept without losing the ability to claim wrongful use if the concept is subsequently taken.
NDAs are enforceable under Lebanese contract law (as governed by the Lebanese Code of Obligations and Contracts) and under UAE commercial law. A well-drafted NDA should cover not just the format concept itself, but all associated development materials, including early-stage Format Bible drafts, mood boards, pilot scripts, and production presentations.
In our experience advising production companies in the region, the failure to put an NDA in place before a pitch meeting is one of the most common — and most costly — legal oversights in the MENA media industry.
The MENA Context: Why This Is Especially Urgent Now
Two developments make format rights protection in the Arab world more pressing today than at any point in the region's television history.
First, the Arabic original content market is no longer niche. Netflix's Arabic original commissions, Shahid's investment in premium regional content, and the rapid growth of streaming audiences across the Gulf and Levant have created genuine international appetite for Arabic-language programming. A format created today in Beirut or Riyadh has realistic export potential that simply did not exist a decade ago.
Second, the regulatory environment across the region is evolving. The UAE's Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2021 brought meaningful updates to the copyright framework — modernising protections for digital works and clarifying the treatment of works created in employment and co-production contexts. Saudi Arabia's updated copyright law (Royal Decree No. M/41 of 2002, as amended in 2021) and its growing entertainment sector ambitions under Vision 2030 add further legal texture to the regional picture.
But legislation alone does not protect a format. Legal protection requires active, deliberate IP strategy — documentation, registration, and contractual architecture built before a format goes into production, not after it has been replicated.
What Producers and Broadcasters Need to Do
The shift from content creation to format engineering is not a creative compromise — it is a commercial imperative. Practically, it means the following.
Document the format in detail before it airs. A comprehensive Format Bible should be drafted, dated, and archived before the first episode goes into production. This establishes the evidentiary record of what was created and when.
Register trademarks for key format elements early. The title, distinctive segment names, and any logo or graphic identity associated with the format should be registered in the primary territories of broadcast and anticipated adaptation. Registration timelines matter: in Lebanon, the process can take 12 to 18 months; in the UAE, it is faster. Start early.
Use NDAs before every pitch. Any disclosure of an unregistered format concept — to a broadcaster, a co-producer, a platform, or a financier — should be preceded by a signed confidentiality agreement.
Structure co-production agreements carefully. When a format is developed jointly, or when a format is licensed for adaptation in a new territory, the co-production or licensing agreement must explicitly define who owns the format IP, who controls adaptations, how revenue from sub-licensing is shared, and what happens to the format rights if the production relationship ends. These questions are rarely addressed adequately in standard production contracts in the region.
For a detailed look at how co-production agreements in the Arab world should be structured, see our full guide to co-production agreements in the Arab world.
A Note on Enforcement
Even with strong documentation and registration, format rights disputes in the MENA region are not straightforward to litigate. Lebanon's court system is slow. Enforcement of IP judgments across borders requires careful jurisdictional planning. The UAE's IP enforcement mechanisms are more robust, but even there, proving format infringement requires demonstrating that a competitor copied the specific, protectable elements of a format — not merely that they made a similar show.
This is why prevention is almost always more effective than litigation. The producers who are best protected are not necessarily those who have the strongest case after infringement occurs — they are those who structured their IP correctly from the outset, making it commercially and legally unviable for competitors to copy them without facing immediate exposure.
The Bottom Line on Format Rights
Format rights in Arabic television are not adequately understood, not consistently protected, and not commercially exploited to anything close to their potential. That is a risk for the producers who are creating original content today — but it is also an opportunity for those who move first to build their formats correctly.
The international television industry has spent decades developing the legal infrastructure that makes format licensing a multi-billion dollar business. The MENA region is at the beginning of that journey. The producers, broadcasters, and studios who invest in format engineering now — in Format Bibles, trademark portfolios, and robust contractual frameworks — will be the ones positioned to export Arabic television formats to the world.
Disclaimer: The information in this article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The legal frameworks governing format rights, intellectual property, and media law vary by jurisdiction and are subject to change. Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you have specific legal questions regarding format rights or media IP, you should consult a qualified lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction.