[Ecommerce] Aging Cuban musicians fight for royalty rights

[Manon Ress]

Posted on Mon, Oct. 03, 2005
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/12802059.htm?
source=3Drss&channel=3Dmiamiherald_cuba

UP FRONT COURTS

Aging Cuban musicians fight for royalty rights

A New Jersey-based music company is battling over the rights to the
golden age of Cuban music.

BY FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@herald.com

It is a legal case unlike any other that London justice has seen
before: British lawyers, minus their heavy robes and white wigs
because of the tropical heat, and aged Cuban musicians decked out in
1940s zoot suits.

The setting was Villa Lita, a Havana mansion outfitted for a case
that stands to decide the proceeds from decades of old Cuban music
made famous again by the Buena Vista Social Club album and movie.

Its protagonists: A New Jersey-based company, a Cuban government
agency and elderly men with tales of playing music from Cuba's
musical golden age back when Fidel Castro was a schoolboy.

The British High Court moved to Havana last week to take testimony in
a landmark case pitting U.S. music company Peer International against
the Cuban agency that claims the copyrights to the old tunes.

The case is over only 14 songs, but potentially at stake are
thousands of compositions by songwriters who went unpaid for years
because of the U.S. embargo.

Men whose music was largely forgotten before the Buena Vista Social
Club hit in 1997 are suddenly worth fighting over.

''To the Cubans, and by Cubans I mean the man on the street, this is
like the Elgin marbles,'' said British attorney Graham Shear, who
represents the Editora Musical de Cuba, referring to ancient
artifacts that the British Museum refuses to return to Greece.

''To Cubans, it's not principally about money,'' he said. ``For
Cubans as a whole, this is about their cultural heritage.''

Peer International bought the rights to thousands of Cuban songs from
the 1930s until Castro's revolution in 1959. The company says the
U.S. embargo prevented it from paying the authors living in Cuba
after 1959. But money was deposited in a U.S. Treasury Department
escrow account when artists like Celia Cruz and Nat ''King'' Cole
recorded some of the songs.

In 1960, the Cuban government canceled the contracts and expropriated
the intellectual-property rights. When companies not under the U.S.
embargo use those songs, they pay royalties that are shared by the
Cuban government and the artists.

'The Cuban state's real aim was to ensure that the Cuban authorities
were able to take a `cut' from any royalties earned by composers,'' a
Peer court filing says.

When American guitarist Ry Cooder went to Havana and produced a
documentary, he made international stars out of the aged Cuban
musicians. Peer owned the title track and several others.

By then the U.S. government had loosened the embargo to allow
payments to musicians, so Peer paid out $2.5 million to Cuban
musicians and their heirs.

''Peer is unique in that it sought a license to permit for payments
to be made,'' Peer attorney Marisa Berardi said by phone from London.

After the movie, Termidor, a German music company working with
Editora Musical de Cuba, registered the copyrights for several Cuban
musicians in England.

Peer -- still holding decades-old contracts -- sued the companies,
claiming to still own the rights to 14 disputed songs by five
musicians, including Ignacio Pi=F1eiro's Echale Salsita and Antonio
''Nico Saquito'' Fern=E1ndez' Cuidadito Compay Gallo.

''Peer has a long history of promoting Latin American music,''
Berardi said.

The trial began in London in May. Some of the Cuban musicians who
sold songs to Peer were set to testify by video link, but when the
technology failed Justice John Lindsay moved the trial to Havana.

There, according to media reports, British lawyers working for the
Cuban agency charged that Peer took advantage of musicians who did
not understand what they signed and that they didn't get paid even
after they did. Some of the deals involved only a few pesos and a
bottle of strong rum, the lawyers claimed.

Among the issues: Did Peer breach the contract by obeying the U.S.
embargo and failing to pay? And, even if it did pay, was it enough?

Peer company officials say other heirs have quietly approached the
company asking to continue the contracts, but they wish to do so
without the Cuban government's knowledge so officials won't seize
their money.

''This has been characterized as a test case,'' Berardi said. ``It's
highly important to Editora Cubana and important to Peer. It's a hard-
fought case.''

Testimony in Cuba concluded Wednesday, and the case resumes Oct. 17
in London.


************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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