Brighton animation company is ordered to destroy films

3:20pm Tuesday 20th November 2012 in News By Emily Walker, Chief Reporter

The DVD cover of Braver © Brightspark Productions The DVD cover of Braver © Brightspark Productions

An animation company has been ordered to destroy every copy of four of its films after being accused of trying to trick people looking for Disney favourites.

Brighton-based animation firm Brightspark Productions was accused of marketing its DVD Braver to confuse customers into believing it was the Disney title Brave.

Brightspark’s film was originally released in 2005 under the title Fairy Tale Christmas, but the firm changed the name and packaging to a new design which bore striking similarities to the Disney blockbuster featuring the voices of Billy Connolly and Kelly MacDonald.

Brightspark initially claimed that any similarities between the film – produced by a company with just five staff in an office behind Brighton bus station in Old Steine – and the Disney title were entirely accidental.

However the company reached an agreement with the animation giant in the High Court and has now agreed to destroy every remaining copy of four films that were similar to Disney hits. They also had to pay some of Disney’s legal costs.

Brightspark managing director Jeremy Davis told The Argus yesterday (November 19) : “We were very happy to reach a mutual agreement with Disney. We certainly won’t be making any children’s animations any more.

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“Disney are a fairly massive might to be taking on in the High Court and we don’t want to be doing that again.”

Disney bosses said they had been left with no choice but to take legal action against Brightspark following complaints from customers that they had been misled.

A spokesman for Disney said: “The High Court order not only prohibits Brightspark from selling Braver, Tangled Up, The Frog Princess and The Little Cars but also stops them from doing anything in the future which would involve them passing themselves off as Disney and confusing consumers.”

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Comments(8)

StyleCop says...
3:29pm Tue 20 Nov 12

Fools for thinking they can get away with such a blatant attempt at piggy backing on a license.

(Speaking as someone who deals with licenses and is actually working with buena vista (disney) at the moment.)

The outcome of this was a forgone conclusion.

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Algeria Touchshriek says...
3:44pm Tue 20 Nov 12

Shame on you !!

Trying to rip the working public off with your no doubt awful cheaply made films.

I hope you go out of business and never work in the industry again. And have no turkey for Christmas dinner and your kids have unfashionable trainers and your wives have to go with out shampoo and Lilets FOREVER.

Shame on you !!

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mimseycal says...
4:14pm Tue 20 Nov 12

I've a copy of Tangled Up! I think it is one of the best animation movies I've seen in a long time. Shame they won't be doing anymore.

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Hoarder12345444 says...
5:24pm Tue 20 Nov 12

I have to say I think that is bullying from Disney. So what if they looked similar, they would hardly ever out gross Disney's films!! It's so typical of the American Corporate Aggression we see all the time, namely Apple usually. I think small firms like this should be able to thrive in a market dominated by only the big players.

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inadaptado says...
5:34pm Tue 20 Nov 12

Hoarder12345444 wrote:
I have to say I think that is bullying from Disney. So what if they looked similar, they would hardly ever out gross Disney's films!! It's so typical of the American Corporate Aggression we see all the time, namely Apple usually. I think small firms like this should be able to thrive in a market dominated by only the big players.
Nice try, Brightspark employee.

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Roundbill says...
6:06pm Tue 20 Nov 12

Yeah - smash the state by, um, ripping off semi-literate or partially-sighted shoppers. Vive la revolution...

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StyleCop says...
6:44pm Tue 20 Nov 12

Hoarder12345444 wrote:
I have to say I think that is bullying from Disney. So what if they looked similar, they would hardly ever out gross Disney's films!! It's so typical of the American Corporate Aggression we see all the time, namely Apple usually. I think small firms like this should be able to thrive in a market dominated by only the big players.
They can.

But they also made the naive decision to mimic the bigger players property by taking some old content that had already been in the public domain and rebranding in a manner which was similar to content in production by the larger organisation...

...that's not enterprise - it was a foolhardy naive cynical attempt to cash in on a bigger, slicker and more cash rich organisation...

It should come as no surprise that such an action would be taken - that's why we have copyright laws.

American Corporate aggression can easily be English Corporate aggression - that's business, and one must protect one's interests.

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Hoarder12345444 says...
9:06pm Tue 20 Nov 12

inadaptado wrote:
Hoarder12345444 wrote:
I have to say I think that is bullying from Disney. So what if they looked similar, they would hardly ever out gross Disney's films!! It's so typical of the American Corporate Aggression we see all the time, namely Apple usually. I think small firms like this should be able to thrive in a market dominated by only the big players.
Nice try, Brightspark employee.
Nice try but I am not an employee, just my view on it.

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