You may remember a story that many of us pointed to as great success when it came out in the media a few months ago. Claude Robinson, creator of “Robinson Curiosité”, had won a lawsuit in the Quebec Superior Court against CINAR (and other big children tv corporations such as France Animation, Ravensburger, RTV Family Entertainment) for the plagiarizing of his work. For more information on this, check out this article in Le Devoir. While this story is really inspiring,
as much for creators as for citizens that sometimes feel trapped in the David vs Goliath stalemate, I thought it was great that Robinson’s friends have spoken up about the financial burden this battle has brought upon Claude Robinson. As Nathalie Petrowski details in this article :
“Encore aujourd’hui, le grand public est convaincu que Claude Robinson a remporté une victoire morale ET financière. Dans son esprit, Robinson a gagné le gros lot et, depuis, il se prélasse au soleil sur son île avec ses millions.”
In other words, because it was declared that he won the lawsuit, everybody thought he was now rich and happy. However, it turns out Robinson didn’t have time to make it to his desert island.
Although he has actually won 5.2 million dollars, he has not yet received a dime of it because CINAR, now owned by Cookie Jar, decided of course to appeal this decision. Many people believe CINAR is simply trying to tire Robinson out and even make him bankrupt. Robinson who has been fighting for 14 years is now having to pay more thousands of dollars in legal and expert fees.
So no, “Claude Robinson does not live on a desert island” is the motto for this website that Robinson’s influential friends Simon Jodoin, of web magazine BangBang, Pierre Paquet, president of Communications Voir and the SARTEC (Société des Auteurs de Radio, Télévision et Cinéma) have launched to keep the public informed that in fact, the battle is not over. In fact, Robinson still faces bankrupcy but it’s even harder to wage that battle when you’ve been fighting for so long.
This is really a story that merits our attention because what’s interesting about his case up to now is that a lot of his support has come from fellow artists (who clearly are not the richest people in the world). So this is really a case where people’s support may make a difference, especially now that http://clauderobinson.org/ is appealing to the public.
So it’s not over and I wish Claude Robinson all the best in this long and heavy legal battle. I hope he will be the first castaway to survive a system that seriously endangers all of us.
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