An injunction filed by the state-owned Radio-Canada has succeeded in removing from the websites of opponents of health measures an “educational” series aimed at children and imitating the cult youth program Bobinoshow documents filed in Federal Court.
Baby, a program “without trap, without hidden message” where “there is no question of talking about the health crisis” and resembling to be mistaken there the children’s program broadcast until the 1980s by the SRC, n finally had only 6 of the 20 planned episodes. The series was pulled from the web in June following legal action by the public broadcaster.
The estate of Guy Sanche, the author who created the series in 1956 Bobino, joined the lawsuit filed on May 17 by Radio-Canada in order to put an end to the broadcasting of this “counterfeit” series on the Internet. This was produced by André (“Stu Pitt”) Pitre and his company Lux Media. The character of Babino was embodied by his collaborator Yanick (“Yandel Artist”) Décarie.
The two men are on the list of 45 Quebec “conspiracy leaders” identified in a recent report by the UNESCO Chair in the Prevention of Radicalization and Violent Extremism. Their ideological affiliation is labeled ‘extreme right’ and ‘anti-government’.
The creators of Baby attempted to raise at least $6,000 on the GoFundMe platform to produce 20 episodes of the series; they had also reserved the domain name Babino.ca, now offline. At least six videos have been released, the court documents read. The lawsuit demanded that they be removed from various platforms, including alternative video streaming sites.
Radio-Canada alleges that this series would have plagiarized the sets, scriptwriting processes, costumes, characters, puppets and opening and closing credits, “recovering in whole or in a significant way elements of the intellectual property of the SRC”. The musical signature would have been taken over; the names of the original characters Bobino and Bobinette, diverted into “Babino” and “Bobépine”.
The authors would have done so without the agreement of the copyright holders, which constitutes a violation of the law.
conspiracy project
When launching their series, André Pitre and Yanick Décarie denounced a shift in current youth programs “to indoctrinate the audience” with “globalist” and “communist” messages.
“As a parent, I don’t want them to slip LGBT messages into my youth show. Messages [à l’effet que le téléspectateur n’est] maybe not a little guy, “said André Pitre in a video still online. “We will not try to get our messages across,” he promises.
After being put on notice by Radio-Canada for the first time in April, the two men would have publicly accused the public broadcaster of “corrupting children”, reports the lawsuit.
“We need to take back control of the content of what we consume [comme] television programs, especially those for children. Subsidized media produce programs that make sure to program our young people, or even manipulate them as they please,” read the description of the fundraising campaign.
End of proceedings
Their project came to an abrupt end after they were made aware of the legal actions taken against them, including through a notification that the Court agreed to send in a private message on Facebook.
In a letter received by the court on 1er June, the defendants indicated “that they do not intend to proceed further in the lawsuit and have decided to comply with the demands of the plaintiff in this matter”. On July 7, Radio-Canada put an end to the proceedings.
“Radio-Canada attaches the utmost importance to respect for intellectual property. Consequently, we are fully satisfied with the conclusion of this case and the cooperation of the defendants,” specified the spokesperson for the Crown corporation, Marc Pichette, by email Thursday.
André Pitre and Yanick Décarie had not answered the questions of the To have to at the time these lines were written.
The original series Bobino aired on the public broadcaster from 1957 to 1985, with morning reruns until 1989. The original series is billed by the lawsuit as “a cult series [qui] is still part of the cultural heritage of those beautiful years”.
With Annabelle Caillou