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What does an indie artist do when America's second-largest department store won't stop stealing your work?

The post ‘Mucha Lucha’ Co-Creator Lili Chin Files Copyright Infringement Suit Against Kohl’s appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Moonbot is laying off employees in Louisiana, but might be growing even larger in Florida.

The post Breaking: Oscar-Winning Studio Moonbot Lays Off Employees After Possible Studio Sale appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Voice actors are refusing to record any voices until game makers and entertainment companies agree to update a decades-old contract.

The post BREAKING: Voice Actors Go On Strike Against Disney, WB, EA, Take 2, Activision and Other Game Makers appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

An effort to organize the artists at Burbank, California-based Stoopid Buddy Stoodios has gained momentum in recent weeks.

The post Exclusive: Artists At Stoopid Buddy, Studio Behind ‘Robot Chicken,’ Are Uniting To Unionize appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Disney and its subsidiaries like Pixar and Lucasfilm are the only companies who are still fighting artists.

The post Dreamworks Offers $50 Million Settlement in Animation Wage-Theft Lawsuit appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

How much do animation workers make in Vancouver? Barely a living wage in some instances.

The post Vancouver Animation Industry Survey Reveals Alarming Low Wages and Unpaid Overtime Practices appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The new web site explains how artists will receive the nearly-$19 million settlement fund from Blue Sky and Sony Pictures.

The post New Web Site Helps Artists Claim Settlement Money From Wage Theft Lawsuit appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

A Vancouver union is asking the Canadian government to investigate whether animation artists were not paid overtime during the production of "Sausage Party."

The post Union Files Complaint On Behalf of ‘Sausage Party’ Artists Over Unpaid Overtime Allegations appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The Brazilian ad agency responsible for the ad claims they came up with the idea on their own.

The post McDonald’s Pulls Commercial That Copied The Work of Animator Cyriak appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Hundreds of employees have been told not to come to work tomorrow!

The post BREAKING: Arc Productions Declares Bankruptcy, Locks Out Hundreds of Employees appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

After receiving a Facebook apology and little else for having his work stolen, Max Hattler has filed a lawsuit against DJ and record producer Bassnectar.

The post DJ Bassnectar Sued By Animator Max Hattler Over Alleged Copyright Infringement appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The Animation Guild continues to grow, giving union benefits to more animation artists throughout the LA animation industry.

The post ‘Futurama’ and ‘Simpsons Movie’ Studio Rough Draft Unionizes appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Disney, Disney-owned Lucasfilm and Pixar, and Dreamworks Animation have come up with a novel tactic to try and dismantle the wage theft lawsuit brought against them by animation industry employees. The simple version of Disney and Dreamworks’ argument: certain animation artists had been aware for years that their was an alleged conspiracy against them, thus making the 10,000-person lawsuit invalid.

Here’s the long version: On May 25, the federal district court presiding over the class-action antitrust case filed by plaintiff animation and digital artists Robert Nitsch, Jr. Georgia Cano, and David Wentworth against several leading animation studios certified the class definition of the artists that will be covered under any ruling in the case. Under Judge Lucy Koh’s ruling, that class who will be eligible to participate in the lawsuit is the following:

“All animation and visual effects employees employed by defendants in the United States who held any of the jobs listed in Ashenfelter Reply Report Amended Appendix C during the following time periods: Pixar (2004–2010), Lucasfilm Ltd., LLC (2004–2010), DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (2004–2010), The Walt Disney Company (2004–2010), Sony Pictures Animation, Inc. and Sony Pictures Imageworks, Inc. (2004–2010), Blue Sky Studios, Inc. (2005–2010) and Two Pic MC LLC f/k/a ImageMovers Digital LLC (2007–2010). Excluded from the Class are senior executives, members of the board of directors, and persons employed to perform office operations or administrative tasks.” [Note: The Ashenfelter Reply Report referred to in the definition is currently under seal and unavailable to the public.]

The plaintiffs sought to expand the class to include those artists who worked at Pixar and Lucasfilm from 2001-2003, and to those artists who worked at DreamWorks in 2003. However, for procedural reasons, the court ruled that it would be inappropriate to expand the class at this time, but left it open for future expansion.

By the end of last week, however, Disney and Dreamworks had appealed the certification to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In their appeal, the studios reminded the court that the entire case had been thrown out last year by Judge Koh on statute of limitations grounds—that is, that Nitsch, Cano and Wentworth filed their lawsuit too many years after the allegedly illegal behavior of the studios took place. Koh only let the case go forward once the plaintiffs showed that the studios may have fraudulently concealed their activities. (As part of the prior settlement with the plaintiffs, Blue Sky Studios, Sony Pictures Animation, and Sony Pictures Imageworks have already agreed to not challenge the class certification sought by the plaintiffs.)

But the studios now argue that even if they concealed their actions, many artists—those who would be part of the certified class—knew about the alleged conspiracy among the studios. The studios point to emails between Pixar employees—one of whom would be a class member—referring to a “gentleman’s agreement” between Pixar and another studio.

They also point to a 2006 meeting between Disney animation employees and the studio’s “president”—presumably, Ed Catmull—in which the president reportedly admitted to a non-poaching agreement among the studios. There is also a meeting between Pixar’s general manager and several interns that mentioned the “gentleman’s agreement,” and that Pixar uploaded the video of the meeting to the company’s intranet, available for all employees to see (and thus learn of the alleged conspiracy).

The studios refer to blog posts (including those made by the Animation Guild Blog), additional meetings, and other evidence, all arguably indicating that a substantial number of artists who make up the certified class had knowledge of the allegedly fraudulently concealed conspiracy.

And if they had knowledge of it, then that knowledge voids any concealment defense to the statute of limitations. In layman’s terms, any Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, or Dreamworks employee who had knowledge that they were being screwed by the studios should not be eligible to be a part of the lawsuit.

Judge Koh, in her certification ruling, addressed some of these concerns, pointing out that, for example, three months after being uploaded onto Pixar’s intranet, the video referencing the anti-poaching agreement had been edited to delete references to the agreement, and then re-uploaded. Judge Koh found much of the studios’ evidence of prior knowledge too general, that the information may have been available generally, but specific instances of knowledge were too few to warrant a limited class certification, and pointed out that the studios can later raise individualized statute of limitations defenses against specific class members.

The studios were obviously unconvinced, and now appeal to a higher court. No ruling from the Ninth Circuit is expected for several weeks. Until then, the class of artists covered by the lawsuit will remain in limbo.

The post Disney and Dreamworks Have Come Up With A New, Kooky Reason Why Wage-Theft Lawsuit Is Invalid appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

"He told me the whole second half was unusable...upon seeing the finished animation later, HE USED MY ENTIRE BOARD SHOT FOR SHOT!"

The post Storyboard Artist Accuses ‘Chipmunks’ Maker Bagdasarian Productions Of Unethical Behavior appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The Walt Disney Company loves to acknowledge anniversaries and milestones, except for this one.

The post On This Day 75 Years Ago, Disney Animation Changed Forever appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

A Los Angeles animation studio creating work that appeared on Disney and Nick-owned platforms didn't pay it artists for months and suddenly shut down.

The post L.A. Studio Cosmic Toast Shut Down Without Paying Its Artists: A Cartoon Brew Investigation appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Running an animation studio can be very profitable...especially if you destroy the studio.

The post Former Digital Domain CEO John Textor Wins $8.5 Million For Bankrupting The Studio appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Youtube is trying to fix its broken copyright claim system, but there's still plenty of room for improvement.

The post Youtube Announces Improvements to Copyright Claim System, But Does It Really Fix The Problem? appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

While Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Dreamworks are still fighting against their employees, Sony has reached a settlement with the animation workers.

The post Sony Takes The High Road And Settles Animation Wage-Theft Lawsuit appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

No animals were harmed in the making of Disney's "The Jungle Book" — unless you count the human animals.

The post Conan O’Brien Nails It With This Skit About VFX Workers on ‘The Jungle Book’ appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

This is a significant victory for the hard-working members of the feature animation community.

The post Blue Sky Agrees To Settle Wage-Fixing Lawsuit With Animation Workers appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Canada's publicly-funded film studio has pledged to commit half of its production budget to women filmmakers.

The post The NFB Just Did Something Awesome For Women Filmmakers appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Use this handy tool the next time someone asks you to create free artwork.

The post Here’s How To Tell People You Can’t Create Free Artwork appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Take a few minutes to understand the lawsuit that industry artists have filed against the big American studios and why it matters.

The post What Is The Animation Wage-Fixing Lawsuit? An Explainer for the Community appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Women don't receive the same opportunities as men do in animation, and they're finally speaking out about it.