There are stories galore about people claiming to have created a character or story before Hollywood came along and stole their idea, and there are so many of them it’s hard to believe. In fact I don’t know of a single one that’s actually won a case – I’m sure you can put me right there if I’m wrong – until now that is.
According to the National Post one author who was attempting to sue Disney for taking his character for Finding Nemo, has lost. Not only that he’s been told to fork out to pay for damages to Disney:
Franck Le Calvez had argued that the lovable title character in Finding Nemo was based on his smiling orange-white clown fish named Pierrot…a young fish separated from his family…both have big smiles and sport three stripes down the side…
Well there are certainly similarities, but in the end the court decided that his book had been written after Finding Nemo had been announced and previews made available on the Internet. He tried to argue that he had registered the idea three years prior, but apparently that wasn’t good enough, he was…
…ordered to pay $49,600 US in damages and interest to Disney and Pixar Animation, which together own Nemo, and to France-based publisher Disney-Hachette Editions. He was also ordered to reimburse legal fees of $30,000 US to the three companies and to pay the cost of printing the ruling in three publications of Disney’s choice.
So here’s a lesson to you all. If you have an idea that you are going to develop and think it’s worth something, document it, get it witnessed by a notary and even think about sealing the envelope and leaving with your Solicitor. Oh, and don’t go on movie sites giving away your entire idea if you haven’t done any of this and you plan to develop it.
