July 2004
Hyperion Sings a Sad Song
Dr Lionel Sawkins, an expert on French baroque music, has won the copyright battle against Hyperion records after recreating works by Michel-Richard De Lalande, a French composer who died three hundred years ago.
Dr Sawkins took action following Hyperion's refusal to accept him as the owner of his compositions that included amongst other pieces Te Deum Laudamus and Venite Exultemus found on his CD titled Music For The Sun King. Despite employing some of De Lalande's original work the substantial amount of the music had been written by Dr Sawyers who filled the gaps using his expertise based on the limited amount of sheet music that had survived since the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century. His aim was purely to reproduce a feasible version of what De Lalande's composition would have sounded like as if it had existed in its entirety.
Briffa Comment:
Acknowledgement by the courts that music editors may own the copyright in a work means trouble for the recording industry in any scenario where recordings involve an editor. The test remains the same however the creator has exercised sufficient skill and labour to create a new copyright which he is entitled to by his creative endeavours.