Maurice Ravel is the sole author of “Boléro”, the court ruled

(Keystone-ATS) French justice 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 Nanterre court, near Paris, “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,” it added.

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 injured co-author, the choreographer Bronislava Nijinska, was also dismissed by this judgment, the artist having “never appeared in the documentation of ‘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, one of the lawyers for Sacem, the organization which manages and collects copyright in France.

“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.

Domaine public

The heiress of Maurice Ravel, Evelyne Pen de Castel, is also ordered to pay one euro to Sacem “in compensation for her damage resulting from the abuse of the author’s moral rights”, details the decision.

This judgment ensures that at this stage, the “Bolero” remains in the public domain as it has been since 2016.

If Sacem had recognized Mr. Benois as co-author, the work would have been protected until May 1, 2039, Mr. Benois having died in 1960.

In France, copyright on a musical composition lasts for the lifetime 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, as the law provides for extensions to compensate for the loss of earnings of French artists during the two World Wars, which extended the protection until May 1, 2016.

If the rights generated represented “for a time millions and millions of euros” annually, according to the information provided in February to the AFP by Me Josée-Anne Bénazéraf, the amounts only reached an average of 135,507 euros per year between 2011 and 2016.