Paris court orders National Opera to pay compensation on long-standing authors' rights claim

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A French court, Le tribunal de grande instance de Paris, has ordered the Finnish National Opera and the prominent French ballerina Sylvie Guillem to pay a total of EUR 100,000 in copyright compensation to the French-Senegalese author Catherine N'Diaye.
      The court confirmed the judgement to Helsingin Sanomat on Tuesday.
     
Essentially the case revolves around the allegation that Guillem and the National Opera are jointly responsible for the "counterfeiting" of N'Diaye's work.
      The judgement was handed down at the end of February, and was first reported by the French news agency AFP.
      The National Opera would appear to be a secondary party to the action, as the court demanded it pay only 10% of the compensation, or EUR 10,000.
      Sylvie Guillem is thus required to pay the lion's share.
     
The court action is in fact quite an old one.
      The National Ballet produced the ballet Giselle in 1998. Guillem was responsible for reworking the classical choreography and taking the lead role.
      The much-praised production was also taken to the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in 2001.
      According to N'Diaye, Guillem used as the inspiration for her arrangement a manuscript that N'Diaye had written for the original ballet.
      The intention at that time was that her version would be used in a film, in which Guillem was to star.
     
The Finnish National Opera, which feels somewhat aggrieved at having believed they could trust Guillem had the rights to the material she was using, was deemed by the court to be a party to the copyright violation as it knew of the existence of the film project.
      As of Tuesday, the National Opera had not received official confirmation of the judgement from the court.
      General Director Päivi Kärkkäinen did not wish to comment on the case before a formal notification from Paris.


Links:
  Finnish National Opera
  Sylvie Guillem
  "A gloriously restored Giselle" (The Independent, London, Jan. 18, 2001)

Helsingin Sanomat