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 requests of the rights holders of Maurice Ravel and Alexandre Benois regarding the Boléro, one of the most performed and distributed works in the world”, detailed the court in a press release, the work “consequently 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 quality as author of the argument (short summary, editor’s note) of the ballet”.
The thesis of another injured co-author, the choreographer Bronislava Nijinska, was also dismissed by this judgment, the artist having “never appeared on the documentation of +Boléro+ as co-author”.
“This is a very well-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 safeguarding the interests of its members,” Yvan Diringer, who is defending Sacem with Josée-Anne Bénazéraf, told AFP.
“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 loss resulting from the abuse of the author’s moral rights”, the decision states.
This judgment ensures that at this stage, the “Bolero” remains in the public domain as it has been since 2016.
The fact that Sacem, which manages and collects royalties in France, recognized Mr. Benois as 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 next 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, as the law provides for extensions aimed at compensating for the loss of earnings of French artists during the two world wars, which extended the protection until May 1, 2016.
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