Justice considers that Maurice Ravel is the sole author of “Bolero”

The Nanterre court rejected the rights holders of the Russian composer and decorator Alexandre Benois, who asked Sacem to recognize the latter as co-author of the famous work.

The courts consider that Maurice Ravel is the sole author of the Bolero. The Nanterre court rejected, on Friday June 28, the rights holders of the Russian composer and decorator Alexandre Benois, who asked the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (Sacem) to recognize the latter as co-author of the famous Bolero. The tribunal “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 “therefore remains in the public domain.”

Concerning the hypothesis of co-authorship of Alexandre Benois, the court considered that “the documents provided did not demonstrate his quality as author of the argument of the ballet”The thesis of another injured co-author, the choreographer Bronislava Nijinska, was also dismissed by this judgment, the artist having not “never appeared on the Bolero documentation as co-author”.

“It is a very well-argued 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 regarding 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 is rejected by the court, we analyze the decision calmly before responding to the press”Gilles Vercken, lawyer for the Ravel estate, told AFP.

Maurice Ravel’s heir, Evelyne Pen de Castel, is also ordered to pay one euro to Sacem “in compensation for his 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. The Bolero, ccomposed in 1928, was protected for 78 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.