Disney is being sued for plagerism (again)
A Paris court will hear a suit on February 17 brought by a French author who claims that Pixar Animation Studios stole the ideas in his children's book for the movie Finding Nemo.
The story hit in late December when Author Franck le Calvez demanded an explanation from Disney, which distributed the film, and has been covered much more extensively in the foreign press than in the U.S.
le Calvez lodged an outline of his work Pierrot Le Poisson Clown (Pierrot the Clown Fish) with a French authors' copyright association in 1995. The illustrated book had a number of elements similar to the Oscar-nominated Pixar film.
In it, Pierrot loses a parent - in this case his father - to an evil predator and is separated from his remaining parent. After a journey described in one report as "enormous in its Homeric proportions," where he meets a surgeon fish and a cleaner shrimp, he is reunited with his mother.
le Calvez made the rounds to French studios trying to sell the idea but gave up in 2000 and decided to publish it himself. He paid $71,000 of his own money to publish 2,000 copies of the book in November 2002, with illustrations by Robin Delpuech and Thierry Jagodzinski. The book was published by France's Editions Flaven Scene, and the entire print run sold out in a month.
le Calvez told the European press he was forced to take legal action after French bookshops stopped stocking his children's book because of fears they might be sued by Disney, even though his book came out before the film. At least one European Web site was still selling it, though, for 14.50 Euros.
Even though the book was published in 2002 and Finding Nemo came one year later, it took Pixar several years to develop the film. le Calvaz's attorney Pascal Kamina told a reporter for The Hollywood Reporter he believes the story found its way to the U.S. after it was submitted to French studios in 1995.
This has not been a good week for Walt Disney Studios as it is. Yesterday, Pixar announced it was ending its lucrative (for Disney) business arrangement and seeking a new distribution partner. When asked for a comment, a Disney representative said he would get back to us on Monday.