Here's Why

Its Kimba all over again

||| French children's book author Franck Le Calve wrote Pierrot le poisson clown (Pierrot the Clown Fish) in 1995, published it with artwork by Robin Delpuech and Thierry Jagodzinski in November 2002. At least this time Disney didn't just change the name from Kimba to Cimba when they stole a story from outside the USA, this time they changed the name AND which parent died! Le Calve has found that since Disney released their copycat movie, no bookshop will stock his books for fear of the wrath of Disney, so he's suing. Its a shame to see Pixar mixed up in this. Of course recently, Disney took their name off the new Peter Pan movie when the copyright holder Great Ormond Street Hospital for children demanded payment for use of the JM Barrie story. I'd ask why Disney didn't just hire their own writers if they didn't want to pay foreign royalties, but with an attitude like this, who would willingly write for them? The pirates don't just live in Never Never Land. Sources: Disney (Allegedly) Making Money off Other People's Ideas? from ionarts Writer sues makers of Finding Nemo from Sydney Morning Herald

About the author: Ian Woolf lives in Sydney, has a degree in Applied Science, worked as a solar astronomer, software engineer, systems programmer, webmaster, research assistant, Cisco CCNA tutor, Physics laboratory demonstrator, Computational Theory lecturer, and subject coordinator; while changing his career to freelance writing and broadcasting. Listen to Ian on the Diffusion radio science show on radio 2SER 107.3FM Monday at 6:30pm in Sydney or streaming audio on www.2ser.com, or listen to the Diffusion podcasts. You should follow me on twitter, here

Posted by iwoolf at December 25, 2003 9:21 AM | TrackBack