France: Court proceedings on remuneration for creators of ‘Arthur et les Minimoys’ characters

• Autores: Amélie Blocman
• Localización: IRIS: Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory, ISSN-e 1023-8565, Nº. 5, 2016
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The regional court (tribunal de grande instance - TGI) of Paris has delivered an extremely significant judgment on the possibility of parties to an author contract waiving the principle of proportional remuneration.

    In 2002 and 2008, the production company of the director of the animated film ‘Arthur et les Minimoys’ (English title: Arthur and the Invisibles) concluded an author contract for the “graphic conception of secondary characters, accessories and drawn decors” which provided for a lump-sum payment in return for the agreed transfer of rights. Two further episodes in the trilogy had been produced subsequently, and new transfer contracts signed by the parties concerned in 2008, in return for a lump-sum remuneration of EUR 40,000. The new contracts also provided for the transfer of the merchandising rights of the four graphic artists, and additional remuneration on the condition that the representations and reproductions included only one or other of the secondary characters they had created. The production company had failed to produce elements making it possible to determine the amounts generated by merchandising, and the creators had discovered that the company was continuing to make use of their creations all over the world without their agreement, a contract, or remuneration. Because of this, the creators were calling on the courts to declare the transfer contracts null, and to award reparations for the prejudice suffered as a result of the wrongful use of their creative work.