TREND
21.09.2007 13:42:41

Lawsuit May be Initiated against US Sound-Recording Company for
Misappropriation of Azerbaijani Song

Azerbaijan, Baku / Òrend corr A. Gasimova / A lawsuit may be made
against US’s EYE RECORDS sound-recording company for violation of a
copyright by a famous Azerbaijani composer.

On 15 September, Russian ORT TV channel broadcast the `Ice Age’
program where figure skaters Sasha Savelyeva and Alexander Sakhnovski
performed a dance under a musical illustration entitled `Armenian
Dance’ which in reality is a work of Azerbaijani composer Tofig
Guliyev called `Sana da Galmaz’.

This fact gives all juridical grounds to the Azerbaijan Republic’s
official bodies Tofig Guliyev to initiate a lawsuit against the
violators of the copyright – US’s EYE RECORDS company and the
producers of the disk, Ara Gevorkyan and Sarkis Berberyan, according
to the report of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Russia.

The report says the Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia, Polad
Bulbuloghlu, who is connected with the chief trainer of the TV
program, honoured master of sports, the Champion of Europe and the
World in Figure Skating, Alexander Zhulin. Azerbaijani Ambassador
voiced his bewilderment with regard to the incident. `Zhulin called
it an unfortunate misunderstanding and expressed his regret in
connection with the incident. He made it clear that the melody used
for the dance performance was suggested to him by his students. They
found the melody in an ANI disk produced in the United States in
1999,’ the report says.

The cover of the ANI disk contained the name of an Armenian composer,
conductor and performer Ara Gevorkyan. The disk contains 10 melodies,
the 5th of which is named ARTSAKH and that is the exact melody used
for the performance of the aforementioned dance, Zhulin said. The
cover of the disk depicts that the disk was produced in the United
States by EYE RECORDS company in 1999.