Justice determines that Xuxa indemnify businessman in R$ 65 million for alleged plagiarism

The presenter Xuxa Meneghel must indemnify businessman Leonardo Soltz, creator of the characters of “Turma do Cabralzinho”, by around R$ 65 million. The determination that weighs on the company Xuxa Promoções e Produções Artísticas is made by Judge Flávia Viveiros de Castro, from the 6th Civil Court.

THE CNN contacted the artist’s advisory and is waiting for a response. The businessman alleges that Xuxa would have appropriated the characters when launching “Turma da Xuxinha discovering Brazil”. The process has been in progress since May 2004.

According to Soltz, with information from the Court of Justice of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the presenter would have improperly appropriated characters idealized by him, on the occasion of the celebration of the 500 years of the discovery of Brazil.

He says that he offered his creation to the defendant, who replied that she would not be interested in airing it, but, shortly afterwards, the company created Turma da Xuxinha with the same characters.

In its defense, the producer stated that there was no plagiarism and that the characters are different. The defendant also denied using the characters created by the plaintiff. Based on the evidence in the file, the magistrate concluded that there was a copy of the characters.

In the process, the judge says: “The defendant uses unethical maneuvers, raising suspicion of the expert, who is a reputable professional, working for this Court and others of this E. Court, without ever having his professional reputation questioned”. “And the professional is right when he says that the value of lost profits has been increasing exponentially as a result of the passage of time”, says another excerpt.

(Published by Lucas Rocha, with information from Carolina Figueiredo)