(Reuters) — Netflix Inc on Friday sued the creators of an alleged unauthorized musical phase manufacturing of its preferred interval drama “Bridgerton,” accusing them of copyright infringement soon after creating demand for their knockoff on TikTok.

The grievance was submitted against Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear in the federal courtroom in Washington, a few times after a bought-out performance of “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical” in that city’s Kennedy Middle.

A law firm for the defendants experienced no speedy comment, owning nevertheless to critique the complaint.

“Bridgerton,” based mostly on Julia Quinn’s bestselling romance novels, attracted 82 million viewers in the first 4 weeks of the series’ debut on Netflix, a history at the time. It was renewed for a second period, and impressed a spin-off collection and are living event, “The Queen’s Ball,” hosted in six towns.

Netflix claimed just after “Bridgerton” was first introduced in December 2020, the defendants begun publishing about the series to TikTok, the place they have 2.4 million followers, which includes building tracks based on figures, scenes, dialogue and plot factors.

The firm mentioned it warned the defendants continuously to halt, but they plowed ahead with an album titled “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical,” which won a Grammy award, and their stage demonstrate.

“Barlow & Bear’s conduct began on social media, but stretches ‘fan fiction’ perfectly earlier its breaking level,” Netflix stated. “It is blatant infringement of intellectual residence rights.”

This week, Barlow and Bear’s musical was carried out in entrance of a bought-out crowd at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, exactly where Netflix was internet hosting its have dwell “Bridgerton” encounter.

The Kennedy Middle present “captivated Bridgerton lovers who would have or else attended the Bridgerton Working experience and produced confusion as to regardless of whether Netflix experienced accredited of Barlow & Bear’s unauthorized derivative operates,” Netflix claimed in the lawsuit.

A September general performance is prepared for Royal Albert Corridor in London, the suit promises.

Sequence creator Shonda Rhimes said in a statement that although there is “so considerably…