Source: http://www.barrysookman.com/2013/12/24/robinson-v-cinar-in-the-supreme-court/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 23:13:15+00:00

Document:
The case involved an educational children’s television show, “The Adventures of Robinson Curiosity” (“Curiosity”) created by Robinson. He developed characters, drew detailed sketches and storyboards, wrote scripts and synopses, and designed promotional materials for his Curiosity project. The infringement action was against Cinar and several of its officers and directors and co-producers who produced and distributed a children’s show named “Robinson Sucroë” (“Sucroë”). Robinson claimed that Sucroë was a blatant copy of Curiosity. His claim, however, was largely based on the presence of many non-literal similarities including similarities in characters such as their personalities and interactions, and their environment. He sued for infringement and was awarded substantial damages by a Quebec Court. The decision was mostly affirmed by the Quebec Court of Appeal.
A summary of the major holdings of the Court is set out below.
The Copyright Act strikes “a balance between promoting the public interest in the encouragement and dissemination of works of the arts and intellect and obtaining a just reward for the creator… It seeks to ensure that an author will reap the benefits of his efforts, in order to incentivize the creation of new works. However, it does not give the author a monopoly over ideas or elements from the public domain, which all are free to draw upon for their own works. For example, “[t]he general stock of incidents in fiction or drama is free for all to use ― a substantial part of everyone’s culture, not of any one individual’s work”: D. Vaver, Intellectual Property Law: Copyright, Patents, Trade-marks (2nd ed. 2011), at p. 182.
It is also a fundamental tenet that copyright does not protect all copying from a work. Unless all or a substantial part of a work is reproduced the copying will not be considered as infringing. A substantial part is measured by its quality rather than its quantity. Whether qualitatively a substantial part of a work has been taken is assessed by determining whether a substantial portion of the originality in the work, a substantial portion of the author’s skill and judgment expressed in the work, has been copied.
It is also fundamental that copyright infringement can be made out by literal or non-literal copying of a substantial part of a work.
. . . the “part” which is regarded as substantial can be a feature or combination of features of the work, abstracted from it rather than forming a discrete part. . . . [T]he original elements in the plot of a play or novel may be a substantial part, so that copyright may be infringed by a work which does not reproduce a single sentence of the original.
(Designers Guild Ltd. v. Russell Williams (Textiles) Ltd.,  1 All E.R. 700 (H.L.), at p. 706, per Lord Hoffmann; see also Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corporation, 45 F.2d 119 (2nd Cir. 1930), per Learned Hand J.
Before delving into the merits of the case, the Court confirmed that the standard of review on a finding of whether a substantial part of a work has been infringed is an error of law or palpable and overriding errors.
Until the Robinson case, there were different approaches used by the courts in Canada for comparing the infringed and the allegedly infringing works to determine if a substantial part had been copied.
The Ontario Court of Appeal in the Delrina case,[iv] had favorably commented on the “abstraction-filtration-comparison” methodology, a methodology that is commonly applied in computer program infringement cases in the U.S. to weed out unprotectable portions of a work before comparing the two works.[v] The appellants had argued that this test should have been applied by the trial judge.
The approach proposed by the Cinar appellants is similar to the “abstraction-filtration-comparison” approach used to assess substantiality in the context of computer software infringement in the United States: see Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai, Inc., 982 F.2d 693 (2nd Cir. 1992); B. Clermont, “Les compilations et la Loi sur le droit d’auteur: leur protection et leur creation” (2006), 18 C.P.I. 219, at p. 237; B. Tarantino, “ ‘I’ve Got This Great Idea for a Show’ ― Copyright Protection for Television Show and Motion Picture Concepts and Proposals” (2004), 17 I.P.J. 189, at pp. 199-200. It has been discussed, though not formally adopted, in Canadian jurisprudence: Delrina Corp., at paras. 43-47. I do not exclude the possibility that such an approach might be useful in deciding whether a substantial part of some works, for example computer programs, has been copied. But many types of works do not lend themselves to a reductive analysis. Canadian courts have generally adopted a qualitative and holistic approach to assessing substantiality. “The character of the works will be looked at, and the court will in all cases look, not at isolated passages, but at the two works as a whole to see whether the use by the defendant has unduly interfered with the plaintiff’s right”: J.S. McKeown, Fox on Canadian Law of Copyright and Industrial Designs (loose-leaf), at p. 21-16.4 (emphasis added).
As a general matter, it is important to not conduct the substantiality analysis by dealing with the copied features piecemeal: Designers Guild, at p. 705, per Lord Hoffman. The approach proposed by the Cinar appellants would risk dissecting Robinson’s work into its component parts. The “abstraction” of Robinson’s work to the essence of what makes it original and the exclusion of non-protectable elements at the outset of the analysis would prevent a truly holistic assessment. This approach focuses unduly on whether each of the parts of Robinson’s work is individually original and protected by copyright law. Rather, the cumulative effect of the features copied from the work must be considered, to determine whether those features amount to a substantial part of Robinson’s skill and judgment expressed in his work as a whole.
Despite declining to apply the abstraction-filtration-comparison test, the Court noted that the trial court had correctly taken the unprotectable elements of Robison’s work into account in doing the comparison between the two works.
The respondents contended that the trial judge had failed to take into account the substantial differences between the two works in assessing infringement. The Court, consistent with well established law, noted that what is important in a copyright case is the extent of the similarities not the extent of the differences. The Court also noted that the differences could be so extensive as to make the allegedly infringing work a new original work.
The question of whether there has been substantial copying focuses on whether the copied features constitute a substantial part of the plaintiff’s work ― not whether they amount to a substantial part of the defendant’s work: Vaver, at p. 186; E. F. Judge and D. J. Gervais, Intellectual Property: The Law in Canada (2nd ed. 2011), at p. 211. The alteration of copied features or their integration into a work that is notably different from the plaintiff’s work does not necessarily preclude a claim that a substantial part of a work has been copied. As the Copyright Act states, infringement includes “any colourable imitation” of a work: definition of “infringing”, s. 2.
An infringing work may also be an original work. Accordingly, this passage by the Court might be interpreted to mean that substantial differences in two works may suggest that the defendant has not reproduced all or any substantial part of the allegedly infringed work.
The appellants argued that even though there had been coping in creating Sucroë, what was copied were unprotectable ideas or stock devices or materials that were otherwise not original or in the public domain. The Court rejected these arguments finding that the trial judge had based his decision on copying expression of ideas and not the ideas themselves.
I turn first to the argument that Sucroë merely reproduced the idea of a children’s television show about a Robinson Crusoe-inspired character living on a tropical island, as opposed to Robinson’s expression of that idea. I cannot accept this contention. The trial judge clearly grounded his finding of copying of a substantial part not in the idea behind Curiosity, but in the way Robinson expressed that idea. He concluded that the overall architecture of Robinson’s submission for a television show was copied. He found that the graphic appearance and several aspects of the personality of Curiosity’s protagonist were copied; the personalities of the secondary characters that gravitate around Curiosity’s protagonist were copied; and the graphic appearance of the makeshift village that these characters inhabit was also copied in part (paras. 685 and 824-26). These findings are not confined to the reproduction of an abstract idea; they focus on the detailed manner in which Robinson’s ideas were expressed.
This leaves the second argument ― the suggestion that to the extent that the characters and setting of Sucroë replicated those found in Curiosity, these are generic elements that are not protected by copyright law. The story of a man marooned on an island interacting with animals, native inhabitants, and the environment is archetypal and has been reproduced for centuries, the Cinar appellants assert.
Again, the trial judge’s findings refute this contention. He found that Curiosity was an original work, within the meaning of the Copyright Act. He based this not on the generic nature of the characters, but on their distinct visual appearance and particular personalities, which were the product of Robinson’s skill and judgment. Nor was Curiosity’s island an entirely generic island; the trial judge cited particular visual elements of the setting that Robinson had conceived and that the Cinar appellants had copied.
The development of a group of characters that have specific personality traits and whose interactions hinge on those personalities can require an exercise of skill and judgment sufficient to satisfy the Copyright Act’s originality criterion: see for example Productions Avanti Ciné-Vidéo Inc. v. Favreau (1999), 177 D.L.R. (4th) 568 (Que. C.A.), leave to appeal refused,  1 S.C.R. xi. Sucroë reproduces more than generic elements which all are free to draw upon for inspiration. It reproduces Curiosity’s particular combination of characters with distinct personality traits, living together and interacting on a tropical island ― elements that represent a substantial part of the skill and judgment expressed in Curiosity.
In so holding, the Supreme Court implicitly accepted that copyright in a TV series can extend to the graphic appearance and personality traits of characters, interactions between characters, and the graphic appearance of settings.
A question that has bedeviled courts, particularly in the US where the concept of substantial similarity is central to a finding of infringement, is the question of whose perspective is to be used in making the comparison between the two works.
Despite the importance of expert evidence in copyright cases, no appellant Canadian case had authoritatively canvassed the admissibility of such evidence. The appellants had challenged the use of the evidence of a semiologist, Dr. Charles Perraton. Dr. Perraton offered evidence that, quite apart from the surface meaning of the works at issue, there were latent similarities in how the two works used atmosphere, dynamics, motifs, symbols, and structure to convey meaning. The trial judge relied on this evidence in concluding that the Cinar appellants had copied a substantial part of Robinson’s work. The Court in the paragraph quoted above explained that expert evidence can be admitted to help the trial judge in areas outside of his/her expertise. The court went further and held the evidence of Dr Perraton was admissible in accordance with generally applicable principles related to admissibility of experts in intellectual property cases.
For expert evidence to be admitted at trial, it must (a) be relevant; (b) be necessary to assist the trier of fact; (c) not offend any exclusionary rule; and (d) involve a properly qualified expert (R. v. Mohan,  2 S.C.R. 9). These criteria apply to trials for copyright infringement, as they do in other intellectual property cases: Masterpiece Inc. v. Alavida Lifestyles Inc., 2011 SCC 27,  2 S.C.R. 387, at para. 75.
The Cinar appellants argue that the second criterion ― necessity of the evidence ― is not met in the case at hand. The expert evidence was not necessary to assist the court, they say, because the question of whether a substantial part has been copied must be assessed from the perspective of the lay person in the intended audience for the works at issue: see Preston v. 20th Century Fox Canada Ltd. (1990), 33 C.P.R. (3d) 242 (F.C.T.D.), aff’d (1993), 53 C.P.R. (3d) 407 (F.C.A.); Arbique v. Gabriele,  J.Q. no 3794 (QL) (Sup. Ct.), aff’d 2003 CanLII 16298 (Que. C.A.). They argue that trial judges are well placed to understand a lay person’s point of view and that the assistance of an expert is unnecessary to help them grasp this perspective….
In my view, the perspective of a lay person in the intended audience for the works at issue is a useful one. It has the merit of keeping the analysis of similarities concrete and grounded in the works themselves, rather than in esoteric theories about the works. However, the question always remains whether a substantial part of the plaintiff’s work was copied. This question should be answered from the perspective of a person whose senses and knowledge allow him or her to fully assess and appreciate all relevant aspects ― patent and latent ― of the works at issue. In some cases, it may be necessary to go beyond the perspective of a lay person in the intended audience for the work, and to call upon an expert to place the trial judge in the shoes of “someone reasonably versed in the relevant art or technology”: Vaver, at p. 187.
To take an example, two pieces of classical music may, to the untrained ear, sound different, perhaps because they are played on different instruments, or at different tempos. An expert musician, however, might see similarities suggesting a substantial part has been copied ― the same key signature, the same arrangement of the notes in recurring passages, or a recurrent and unusual harmonic chord. It will be for the judge to determine whether the similarities establish copying of a substantial part, to be sure. But in making that determination, the judge may need to consider not only how the work sounds to the lay person in the intended audience, but also structural similarities that only an expert can detect.
Finally, the works at issue had both patent and latent similarities. Or, as Dr. Perraton explained it, they shared “perceptible” and “intelligible” similarities. “Perceptible” similarities are those that can be directly observed, whereas “intelligible” similarities ― such as atmosphere, dynamics, motifs, and structure ― affect a viewer’s experience of the work indirectly. Expert evidence was necessary to assist the trial judge in distilling and comparing the “intelligible” aspects of the works at issue, which he would not otherwise appreciate. Consequently, the trial judge did not err in admitting the expert evidence of Dr. Perraton.
Pursuant to s. 35 of the Copyright Act, the trial judge awarded both compensatory damages to account for Robinson’s losses (including non-pecuniary damages) and 50 percent of the profits made by the infringers, against all the Cinar appellants, on a solidary (joint and several) basis. On the facts of the case, the appellants had used a soundtrack created by Robinson in Sucroë. Robinson had claimed the profits from Sucroë based on the use of the soundtrack. The appellants had argued that the profits had to be apportioned and limited only to the profits earned from the use of the sountrack. The Court refused to allow the apportionment based on the factual finding of the trial judge that the music revenues could not be disassociated from the overall work.
In the case at hand, the trial judge found that [translation] “the music revenues cannot be disassociated from the overall . . . work”: para. 1016. The Court of Appeal disagreed and asked itself what profits would have been generated if the soundtrack had been commercialized as a separate product, independently of the infringing material (para. 196). It relied on the “differential profit” approach used in patent infringement cases, in which a comparison is made “between the defendant’s profit attributable to the invention and his profit had he used the best non-infringing option”: Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser, 2004 SCC 34,  1 S.C.R. 902, at para. 102.
Another issue in the case was whether the remedy of accounting of profits can be assessed on a joint and several basis. The Court explained the purposes of the accounting of profits remedy and held that it cannot be imposed on a joint and several basis, at least not under Quebec civil law.
Section 35 of the Copyright Act provides a dual remedy for copyright infringement: damages for the plaintiff’s losses and disgorgement of the profits retained by the defendant. Disgorgement of profits under s. 35 is designed mainly to prevent unjust enrichment, although it can also serve a secondary purpose of deterrence: Vaver, at p. 650. It is not intended to compensate the plaintiff. This remedy is not subject to the principles that govern general damages awarded under Quebec’s law of extra-contractual liability, whose aim is compensatory. Consequently, solidarity of profits ordered disgorged under s. 35 of the Copyright Act cannot be inferred from art. 1526 of the CCQ, which makes co-authors of a fault solidarily liable for the “obligation to make reparation for injury caused to another”.
The trial judge awarded Robinson $400,000 in non-pecuniary damages as compensation for his psychological suffering. He analogized Robinson’s psychological suffering to the injury sustained by a victim of defamation. The Court agreed with the trial judge that damages for Robinson’s psychological suffering could be assessed under principles analogous to those used in assessing damages for defamation.
The trial awarded $1,000,000 in punitive damages on a joint and several basis against Cinar and a number of the other appellants. The Court of Appeal reduced the award to $250,000. The Court increased the award to $500,000. In doing so the Court reviewed the statutory basis for the award as well as the proper approach to awarding punitive damages for copyright infringement.
In Quebec, punitive damages can only be awarded where they are provided for by a specific enabling enactment. The Court found such a basis in the Quebec Charter of human rights and freedoms. In particular, the Court found that copyright infringement violated two of Robinson’s Charter rights. First, the infringement violated his rights under s6 of the Charter which provides that “[e]very person has a right to the peaceful enjoyment and free disposition of his property, except to the extent provided by law”. In addition, the infringement of copyright interfered with Robinson’s personal rights to inviolability and to dignity, recognized by ss. 1 and 4 of the Charter.
The Court examined whether punitive damages could be assessed on a joint and several basis under Quebec law and determined that it was not permissible.
It then explained the basis for awarding Robinson $500,000 in punitive damages under Quebec law. Notably, the Court emphasized that the wilful infringement threatened one of the fundamental goals of Canadian copyright law, namely “to prevent someone other than the creator [of a work] from appropriating whatever benefits may be generated”.
As discussed, punitive damages are assessed by looking to the purposes they serve — prevention, deterrence, and denunciation. Factors to be considered include the gravity of the debtor’s fault; the debtor’s patrimonial situation; the extent of the reparation for which the debtor is already liable to the creditor; and the fact that the payment of damages will be wholly or partly assumed by a third person (art. 1621 CCQ). I also note that, in Quebec civil law, “it is perfectly acceptable to use punitive damages, as is done at common law, to relieve a wrongdoer of its profits where compensatory damages would amount to nothing more than an expense paid to earn greater profits while flouting the law”: Richard, at para. 206.
In addition, particular attention must be paid to the gravity of the debtor’s fault, which “is undoubtedly the most important factor”: Richard, at para. 200. The gravity is assessed from two perspectives: “. . . the wrongful conduct of the wrongdoer and the seriousness of the infringement of the victim’s rights” (ibid.).
In this case, the relevant factors point in different directions. On the one hand, the gravity of the conduct suggests a high amount of punitive damages. Cinar, Weinberg, Charest, and Izard engaged in intentional and calculated copyright infringement, which they planned to keep secret all the while reaping profits from an internationally successful children’s television series. They persistently denied having copied any portion of Robinson’s work throughout the lengthy legal proceedings. Conduct of this nature threatens one of the fundamental goals of Canadian copyright law, namely “to prevent someone other than the creator [of a work] from appropriating whatever benefits may be generated”: Théberge, at para. 30. The impact of this conduct on Robinson was equally serious. It deprived him not only of a source of revenue, but also of his sense of proprietorship over a project that had deep personal significance for him. He experienced profound anguish. Insult was added to injury by the callous denials of copying and by insinuations to the effect that Robinson was simply an attention-seeking eccentric.
[v] See, Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai, Inc., 982 F.2d 693 (2nd Cir. 1992).

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