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"Movie producer Mark Forstater has won a High Court case against surviving members of the Monty Python team over royalties related to stage musical Spamalot. The producer of Monty Python and the Holy Grail took the team behind the musical to court wanting a share of proceeds from the production, described in its publicity as being &amp;quot;lovingly ripped off&amp;quot; from the film.  &amp;gt; &amp;#039;Spamalot&amp;#039; at Playhouse Theatre, London - Review As part of a 1974 agreement with Python (Monty) Pictures (PMP), investors were entitled to a share in 50% of all merchandise revenues and spin-off income. Forstater had argued that he was entitled to one-seventh of this figure, but the team argued he was entitled to only one-fourteenth - the sum he has been paid since the musical&amp;#039;s launch in 2005. &amp;quot;I have always been adamant I was correct. I have been proved right - justice has prevailed,&amp;quot; said Forstater.  &amp;quot;There is a sadness, though, about having to face people who were my friends in court.&amp;quot; He added: &amp;quot;We have been friends for a long time. Monty Python are an institution. I like the fact that they have apparently joked about the litigation. I still think they are very funny.&amp;quot;  Pythons Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones gave evidence at the trial. Palin had argued during the case against claims that Forstater was the &amp;quot;seventh Python&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think there was ever any suggestion this man was going to be a &amp;#039;seventh Python&amp;#039;,&amp;quot; He said. &amp;quot;He was not the creator of the film. The film had been created by the Python team entirely. &amp;quot;Mark came on board. He became the producer. But I don&amp;#039;t think he was entitled to anything beyond that. Mark was not part of our team. There were six of us. We were a tight group. We wrote our own material.&amp;quot; Final figures will be worked out at future hearings, but Forstater estimates that he is entitled to over \u00C2\u00A3200,000. John Cleese has sparred with Idle over the royalties for Spamalot in the past. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/showbiz/news/a496033/monty-python-team-loses-spamalot-royalties-case/>