Gallo Music and Sting Music have locked horns in the South Gauteng Division of the High Court over copyright in certain songs named Thula Baba, Unomathemba and Siliwelile. Gallo claims that it owns the copyright in these songs and that Sting therefore required their authority to include them in the stage musical Umoja and that it is entitled to claim royalties arising out of the inclusion of these songs in the musical. Sting, on the other hand, claims that the songs are traditional and therefore in the public domain with the result that they are free for use by everyone, including itself.

Of course, as has been frequently aired in the past on this blog, once the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Act (otherwise known as the “Traditional Knowledge Act”) comes into operation, the community, or communities (whatever they may be) from which these songs originated will be able to claim royalties for their use, over and above anything that Gallo may be able to claim.

Accordingly, the claim that they are in the public domain may be a short lived illusion and Sting, like everyone else who wishes to use any work which can vaguely be categorised as being traditional, will have to pay the piper. Gone will be the days of utilising material in the public domain, at least as far as so called “traditional works” are concerned, for nothing. One may use the works of Beethoven, Mozart and the like with impunity (unless perhaps they too can be categorised as traditional) but not tribal works because they are sacrosanct..

Be it as it may, the court happily does not have to cope with this complication at the present time. What is in issue is whether the songs are truly traditional, or whether they are the original works of authors who have transferred their rights to Gallo.

The answer to the above question may depend largely on the facts of the matter but it is important that the principle involved should be understood. At the present time songs which are truly traditional works are indeed in the public domain. However, it is possible for a composer to take a traditional song and adapt it or transform it into a new version, whereupon an original copyright is created as a derivative of the traditional work. Provided the composer of the derivative work expends sufficient talent and work in creating the derivative work, copyright subsists in it and he/she is the owner of that copyright. In the event that someone copies his or her derivative version, that copyright is infringed. The fact that source version of the derivative work may be in the public domain is irrelevant. On the other hand, however, in the event that the third party copies the source material, ie. the traditional version of the song, then the copyright in the derivative version is not infringed even though there may be substantial similarity between the third party’s version and the derivative version. In other words, while the maker of the derivative work can have an independent copyright in his new version, that does not give him rights in the traditional version which remains in the public domain and can be used by all (at least for the time being in the case of traditional work).

Interestingly, Gallo was involved in litigation in Belgium in a very similar matter a few years ago. That litigation also involved the song Thula Baba and in addition the songs Jikel-Emaweni and Quonguothwane (Click Song). The evidence in that matter showed that all of the songs on which Gallo relied were derivative versions of traditional songs and that the infringer (Helmut Lotti, the well-known singer) had copied the derivative versions and not the traditional versions. Accordingly, the Belgium court held that copyright infringement had taken place. The factual findings regarding the subsistence of copyright in the derivative versions and which versions had been copied by Lotti were made by a panel of expert musicologists, including an eminent South African expert.

In other words, the essence of the present matter appears to be: which versions of the relevant songs were copied by Sting? If the derivative versions in which copyright is owned by Gallo, were copied, then Gallo appears to have a sound case. On the other hand, if the facts show that Sting went back to the initial traditional versions of the songs and used these versions as their source material, then it would seem that there has been no copyright infringement.

This case highlights the kind of issues which are likely to arise in the future once the communities favoured by the so-called Traditional Knowledge Act get going and start claiming their dues for the use of traditional music and other works. In these circumstances, Sting will be caught between a rock and a hard place and the use of “traditional” songs in musicals is likely to face copyright infringement claims from a variety of sources, from both the Gallos of this world and the communities (probably a plurality of them, each advancing their own cause) which claim to have originated the songs.
Let the games begin!

Written by Prof O H Dean, Faculty of Law – Stellenbosch University