Music and Entertainment Law: Music Contracts - Editions Musicales Alpha S.A.R.L. v Universal Music Publishing Ltd and Others
Mungo Jerry live at Zürisee-Festival in Switzerland 2013, Erlenbach Author Harald Bischoff Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence. Source: Wikipedia IPEC (His Honour Judge Hacon) Editions Musicales Alpha S.A.R.L. v Universal Music Publishing Ltd and Others [2017] EWHC 1058 (IPEC) (10 May 2017) This case, which came before His Honour Judge Hacon on 23 Feb 2017, shows how copyright comes into being, how it is assigned and how much care should be taken when drawing up agreements for its assignment, particularly when settling disputes over ownership. The story began in 1966 when Jacques Dutronc recorded a song entitled Et moi, et moi, et moi which reached number 2 in the French charts. Dutronc had composed the music while Jacques Lanzmann wrote the words. Because Britain and France were and remain parties to the Berne Convention , copyright subsisted automatically in those works in the United Kingdom by virtue of s.2 of the C