Irish man Michael Roy Barry has claimed that he is the man responsible for the idea behind TV talent show The Voice, and not Dutch television producer John de Mol.

The writer claims that he registered and copyrighted the format to the show back in 2008, and says that the idea was illegally poached by Dutch entertainment company Talpa and it’s owner De Mol. However he didn’t raise any objections to the show until it had reached it’s second series in Holland. By then the rights had also been sold to NBC in America, where the first series was a huge ratings hit and it was also aquired by the BBC to air in the UK in 2012.

Talpa have responded to the claims, telling Dutch media that they have had lawyers from both The Netherlands and Ireland looking into the matter, who have all confirmed that the idea Michael had, is different from that of The Voice of Holland.

In response, Barry published a number of documents indicating that the original format of the show is his. You can read more about his submission to the U.S. Copyrights Office , The Writers Guild of America and TvWritersVault.com here.

Michael later released a statement saying:

When Jon De Mol produced and aired ‘The Voice of Holland’ did he really think that he would be ale to convence the world that this was his creation? When he starting selling the show around the world for millions, he must have forgotten that the one person they copied it off not only new they were been untruthful to the world, but that they he had the documents to prove it!

Talpa Media’s response to the queries has been predictable and again untrue. NO two groups of lawyers have met with Roy Barry, talked or agreed that the case was weak. This is yet another lie by Talpa as Roy Barry certainly did not attend this ‘phantom’ meeting!

The simply fact is that Roy Barry developed and wrote the show title and format in 2008. His documents can be viewed at the US copyright office and they prove this. What he can also prove is that Marco Borsato’s company viewed his show format after signing an NDA in 2009 and is now a judge on the next season!!

Keep up with all the latest The Voice news and gossip here.