Claude Robinson Sues Cinar For Plagiarism
Cartoonist Alleges Company Stole His Idea For Robinson Sucroe
Sep 3, 2008
Claude Robinson's long-awaited lawsuit against Cinar finally began yesterday in Montreal. He is suing the disgraced studio and its affiliates, including France Animation, the British Broadcasting Corp. and Ravensburger, for over $10 million.
Robinson claims that Cinar stole his idea for Robinson Curiosité, based on himself and Daniel Defoe's classic Robinson Crusoe, and turned it into the animation series Robinson Sucroe. Claude Robinson launched his lawsuit after seeing the Cinar show on TV.
"After 13 years, I am still revolted," Robinson told CBC's French-language service on Tuesday. "Now, I finally have the chance to say it to a judge."
Robinson Claims Cinar Stole His Idea
According to an article by Report on Business Magazine's Sarah Scott, Robinson approached Cinar's founders, the husband-and-wife team of Micheline Charest and Ronald A. Weinberg, with his idea in 1985. Robinson had already recruited Pathonic International, a production arm of Quebecor Media.
In January, 1986, Weinberg signed a letter to Pathonic, offering to give advice on Robinson Curiosité's characters, story line and format in exchange for $5,000 (U.S.) per month for six months. According to Robinson, Disney even offered Robinson and Pathonic $100,000 per episode. But Pathonic pulled out, due to a dispute over its cut of the proceeds.
Robinson spent the next several years hunting for alternative financing, until he spotted an episode of Robinson Sucroe on la Canal Famille in the fall of 1995.
The title character of Robinson Curiosité, a curious explorer living on a remote island, was based on himself, complete with unkempt beard and round glasses. The lead character in Robinson Sucroe was identical.
"When I look at that," Robinson told Scott. "I'm looking at myself."
Investigation Helped Cause Cinar Collapse
An initial message from Robinson's lawyer, pointing out similarities between the two concepts, produced this response: "Cinar's archives do not show any relations between your client and Cinar." After a more detailed follow-up, Cinar claimed that Robinson Sucroe was "developed completely independently of your client and his work."
When the RCMP launched an investigation, Micheline Charest told officers that Christophe Izard, a French businessman, had developed Robinson Sucroe. Izard admitted that he had seen Robinson's pitch for Robinson Curiosité at the 1987 Cannes film festival.
"Ronald Weinberg initially denied remembering Claude Robinson's project," reported the RCMP. "Then he identified three documents dated 1986, documents that showed that contrary to his claims, he was exposed to the Robinson Curiosité project, including scripts, drawings and development, and this since 1986. Two of these documents included his signature."
There was worse to come. One of the credited writers on Robinson Sucroe, and many other Cinar productions, was "Erica A. Alexandre." Despite being a complete unknown, she had collected nearly $1 million from various Cinar projects. Robinson claimed it was a pseudonym, created by combining the names of Charest and Weinberg's two sons, Eric and Alexandre.
Under questioning by Robinson's lawyer, Weinberg claimed Erica A. Alexandre was Charest's sister, Helene. However, Helene, a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch, denied ever writing anything for Cinar.
In February of 2000, Micheline Charest quietly handed nearly $1 million to the SACD, the private agency that collects royalties for authors. It was a tacit admission that she was "Erica A. Alexandre."
Sgt.-Det. Alain Lacoursiere, a detective with the Montreal Urban Community police, uncovered another paper trail that showed Cinar was using Robinson Sucroe writers' supervisor Thomas LaPierre to funnel money to American writers Gary Cohen and Don Rifkin, in exchange for some scripts for another Cinar show, Chris Cross.
By claiming LaPierre (a Canadian writer) as the official author, Cinar was able to receive government tax credits and grants that totaled $75 million between 1993 and 1998. LaPierre received no money on the deal, and cooperated fully with Lacoursiere. "He felt trapped," claimed the detective.
Can Cinar Pay Claude Robinson?
However, Cinar In February of 2000, federal investigators discovered serious financial irregularities at Cinar. The most damning discovery was Charest and Weinberg's decision to invest $122 million (US) in the Bahamas without the approval of board directors. Cinar's stock collapsed, the company was delisted, and Cinar paid $17.8 million to the federal and provincial governments, and another $2.6 million (CAD) to Telefilm Canada, a Canadian federal funding agency.
Weinberg and Charest each paid $1 million to the Quebec Securities Commission and were banned from serving on the board of any publicly traded company for 5 years.
In 2004, Nelvana founder Michael Hirsh purchased Cinar's assets and renamed the company Cookie Jar Entertainment. He, among others, is currently suing Weinberg for $112 million. Charest died April 14, 2004, after complications from elective plastic surgery.
But for Claude Robinson, any money is secondary to the admission, after years of disbelief and ridicule, that Cinar stole his idea.
"Today," he told Scott, "people are starting to understand: It's not an imaginary story."
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