A copyright dispute is brewing between rival singing competition shows after Insight Productions Company earlier this week unveiled a potentially lucrative deal to sell the international format rights to its Canada Sings series to Endemol.

That announcement has been followed by two Dutch companies, pubcaster NCRV and format distributor Absolutely Independent, surfacing to allege Canada Sings infringes the copyright of The Singing Office, C21 reported Thursday.

Canada Sings, a six-part series for Global Television, features ordinary Canadians forming glee clubs with co-workers to compete against other workplace teams.

The Singing Office, whose rights are held by series creator NCRV, has two hosts ambushing employees in two separate companies to find singing talent in the respective workplaces willing to compete against the other.

Insight Productions topper John Brunton told Playback Daily he had few details on the matter, as he had only just heard about the copyright infringement accusation from NCRV and Absolutely Independent.

But Brunton insisted the concept for Canada Sings was not lifted from The Singing Office.

He said the Canadian show, which has been renewed by Shaw Media for a second season, was inspired by the success of Fox’s Glee, which also airs on Global Television.

“We haven’t infringed on anyone’s copyright on that show,” he said.

Executives at Absolutely Independent, which distributes the format for NCRV’s The Singing Office internationally, were not available for comment at press time.