Sir Ian Taylor says his company is pulling their TV graphics service for today's action in the Prada Cup as a protest to the developments in an ongoing copyright stoush with Sir Russell Coutts .
Coutts' companies, Oracle Racing and SailGP, along with two other companies filed copyright infringement claims against Taylor's company Animatrion Research Ltd just prior to Christmas in relation to graphics that were being developed for this year's racing.
According to Taylor, the decision to temporarily withdraw their technology came after a deal between production companies Riedel and Circle0 paid a licence fee to Russell Coutts' SailGP for the use of the graphics - something he and ARL hadn't agreed to or seen.
As a response, Sir Taylor said this morning he has advised Riedel and Circle0 that ARL wouldn't provide its graphics in today's coverage as a way of letting them know they didn't accept the agreement.
“The graphics that were seen on the coverage yesterday are totally original works of ARL and we reject entirely the decisions taken by Riedel and CircleO to pay Sir Russell to give us the rights to use them,” Taylor said.
“We only found out about the deal when I was contacted by media yesterday asking me about a press release from SailGP that they had come to an agreement with Riedel and CircleO that they had withdrawn their claims because Riedel had paid Sail GP a License Fee and in return Riedel and CircleO would now partner with Russell on the SailGP sailing event Russell set up after Emirates Team New Zealand won the Cup off him in Bermuda.”
Taylor says that the Virtual Eye Live AR will return tomorrow and no further disruptions would happen throughout the Prada Cup and America's Cup.
“We realise how important this event is for New Zealand and sailing fans around the world so our plan is to limit this action to one day only and we will still be delivering our award winning Virtual Eye 3D graphics system that has been used in every America’s Cup since 1992.
"We expect our position against this legal threat laid on us by Sir Russell and his associated companies to be countered and if Riedel doesn’t do that, we will have to find a way to do it ourselves. This action today is only being taken because we have been forced to defend our copyright against the claims made by Sir Russell.”
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