The French courts on Friday dismissed the claims of Maurice Ravel and Russian decorator Alexandre Benois, who had asked the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (Sacem) to recognise the latter as co-author of the famous Bolero. Ravel is therefore the sole author of this emblematic musical work and the request of the rights holders so that the Bolero returns to the private domain until 2039, or even 2051, was rejected.
The Nanterre court, near Paris, therefore, on Friday “rejected the requests of the beneficiaries of Maurice Ravel and Alexandre Benois regarding the Bolero, one of the most performed and broadcast works in the world,” detailed the court in a press release. The work “consequently remains in the public domain”, adds the court.
Far from family
The fight for the return of the Bolero in the “slot machines” category is led mainly by Évelyne Pen de Castel, Swiss resident. The latter is the daughter in first marriage of Georgette, the second wife of Alexandre Taverne, husband and heir of Jeanne. Jeanne was the governess and sole heir of Édouard-Joseph Ravel, widower and childless, himself heir of his brother Maurice Ravel, who died in 1937.
Alexandre Taverne having survived Jeanne, the jackpot of rights to Maurice Ravel’s work went upon his death to Georgette, his second wife (and Jeanne’s manicurist), whose daughter in her first marriage is causing all the current legal fuss. This heiress, by many detours, of Maurice Ravel, Évelyne 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”, details the court decision handed down on Friday. Financially painless, the judgment is morally extremely eloquent on what the court thinks of the approach taken by the rights holders.
The Bolero was protected for 78 years and four months, until 1er May 2016. Maurice Ravel died in December 1937 and, in France, the rights to a work were carried in the 1980s from 50 to 70 years after the death of the author. What’s more, this duration is increased by the war years to compensate for the loss of income of French artists during the two world wars.
The diagram
To avoid the extinction of rights, Evelyne Pen de Castel, allied with the successors of Jean-Jacques Lemoine, who had been given by the Taverne couple the mission of taking charge of and optimizing the management of rights, had put forward the argument that the Bolero would be a collaborative work. The Bolero being originally a ballet, the arguments put forward were that the Russian painter Alexandre Benois would have participated in its conception by proposing to make the Bolero in a tavern setting. The idea was brilliant in itself, based on the following intellectual schema: Benois having died 23 years after Ravel, if the idea of “collaborative work” had been retained, the rights would have been extended accordingly, until 2039 , with, in addition, retrocession of sums not collected (and interest) since 2016.
According to Le Figarothe stake involved 20 million euros (approximately 29 million Canadian dollars), plus millions of euros claimed from Sacem in damages and compensation.
Regarding the hypothesis of Mr. Benois’s co-authorship, the court considered that “the documents provided did not demonstrate his status as author of the ballet’s argument.” 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 the Bolero as co-author”. In our article of February 14, we explained how, after the Benois idea, the Nijinska hypothesis emerged, the choreographer, whose death in 1972 would have allowed her to receive royalties until 2051, if, according to the same scheme, she had been recognized as co-author.
The bottom line of the judgment therefore states that Maurice Ravel is indeed the sole author of Bolero.
“It 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,” M responded to Agence France-Presse (AFP)e Yvan Diringer, one of the lawyers of Sacem, the organization that manages and collects copyright in France.
“The action of estates and publishers [également parties au dossier, ndlr] is rejected by the court, we calmly analyze the decision before responding to the press,” Me Gilles Vercken, lawyer for Ravel’s estate. Even before the judgment, the beneficiaries had announced that they would appeal if the court did not rule in their favor. Will the scathing conviction for “abuse of moral rights of authors” make them back down or, on the contrary, will it give them new impetus?
The questions asked on February 14 — notably “are the provisions on copyright really intended to cover a work for 123 years for the benefit of third parties without any connection with the author? » — got a de facto answer.
The judgment ensures that at this stage, the Bolero remains in the public domain, as it has been since May 2016. Above all, it brings a sigh of relief to many stakeholders in the field of arts and copyright. Recognizing the painter and the choreographer of a performance of the creation as “co-authors” of a musical work would have opened a Pandora’s box with ramifications as gigantic as they are unpredictable and unsuspected.
With Agence France-Presse