Russian writer believes Smeshariki (Kikoroki) are plagiarized from his works

One Russian writer has sued the creators of cartoons Smeshariki (Kukoriki) – popular Russian cartoon serial – for plagiarism. He believes the screenplays for certain series have been plagiarized from his literary works. And he knew it thanks to Siberian scientists. They have developed new system “anti-plagiarism” which revealed multiple rip off in cartoons.

In 2017 the group of scientists from Tomsk University has developed new system analyzing social graph and its evolution. This program compares plots of literary works and finds similarities. De facto this program searches plagiarized parts of works, but it does not find direct quoting, it finds similarities on the figurativeness level.

“The social graph is abstract mathematical object, consisting of multiple vertexes and the set of edges. The vertexes are represented by social objects with different attributes and edges are social connections between attributes.” – explained one of the scientists.

The scientists have checked three feature length cartoons from the Smeshariki series and find out that their plot is similarly with the book by Russian writer, not famous writer. His work also consists of three novels. The scientists have even draft the table of similarities. Similarities include even dialogues, separate episodes, the whole plot moves, images of the main characters. The book has been published in 2003 and the first series of the Smeshariki have been released since 2004 and the feature length cartoons, the works at issue, have been released since 2011.

One of the scientists have found the book author and informed his of the research results. After that the writer commenced his fighting with Smeshariki creators for his intellectual property. He wrote several times to the creators and has even proposed one more his work to write new screen play, but did not receive any answer. Then he has sued them for plagiarism: he claims they rip off the plot, the system of work’s characters.

The claimant seeks to declare the screen play counterfeited, to forbid his exploitation and publish the court decision on the web-site dedicated to cartoons. The monetary compensation is to be determined by the court after duly consideration of all circumstances.