(Nanterre) The Nanterre court on Friday rejected the rights holders of Maurice Ravel and the Russian decorator Alexandre Benois, who asked the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (Sacem) to recognize the latter as co-author of the famous Boléro.
The court “rejected the claims of the rights holders of Maurice Ravel and Alexandre Benois regarding Boléro, one of the most performed and broadcast works in the world,” the court said in a statement, the work “therefore remains in the public domain.”
Concerning the hypothesis of a co-authorship of Mr. Benois, the court considered that “the documents provided did not demonstrate his capacity as author of the argument (short summary, Editor’s note) of the ballet”.
The thesis of another aggrieved co-author, the choreographer Bronislava Nijinska, was also dismissed by this judgment, the artist having “never appeared in the documentation of the Boléro as a co-author”.
“It is a very reasoned decision, which took care to examine all the elements brought to the attention of the court and which validates Sacem both in its approach […] and in its position with regard to the safeguarding the interests of its members,” reacted to AFP Me Yvan Diringer, who defends Sacem with Me Josée-Anne Bénazéraf.
“The action of the estates and publishers (also parties to the case, Editor’s note) is rejected by the court, we analyze the decision calmly before responding to the press”, for his part declared to AFP Me Gilles Vercken, lawyer of the Ravel estate.
Maurice Ravel’s heiress, Evelyne Pen de Castel, is also ordered to pay one euro to Sacem “in compensation for her damage resulting from the abuse of moral copyright rights”, details the decision.
This judgment ensures that at this stage, the Bolero remains in the public domain as it has been since 2016.
For Sacem, which manages and collects copyright in France, to recognize Mr. Benois as a co-author would have had the effect of protecting the work until May 1, 2039, Mr. Benois having died in 1960.
In France, copyright on a musical composition lasts for the life of its author and then for the following seventy years. It then falls into the public domain and can be used freely.
The Bolero was protected for seventy-eight years and four months, because the law provides for extensions which aim to compensate for the loss of income of French artists during the two world wars, which carried the protection until May 1, 2016 .