Boing Boing reports that a Dutch musician is claiming somebody has pirated the anthem he wrote for an anti-piracy video by also using it in DVDs, which he says he didn't authorize and hasn't been paid for. Melchior Rietveldt, who should get a cash bonus of some kind just for being named "Melchior," says the agreement was for the music to be used in one video to be shown at a local film festival, not in tens of millions of DVDs for which he is not getting any royalties. The report is not entirely clear as to who may be responsible for the piracy -- the anthem was commissioned by an anti-piracy group, but it remains to be seen whether the anti-piracy anthem was actually pirated by an anti-piracy group. I certainly hope so.
In what may be an unfortunate development for the royalty-collection agency involved, a board member of the agency was allegedly recorded offering to help Rietveldt get paid for his hard work, but only if he turned over the rights and one-third of the royalties (which may total more than $1m). That also seems fairly piratical, and possibly illegal. The board member has "temporarily resigned to focus on his defense," saying his offer was "misinterpreted."
In a somewhat similar case last year, the winner of the "Protect Copyright" contest sponsored by Taiwan's Intellectual Property Office was disqualified after it was revealed that he had stolen the image he used in his poster from another artist. "The contest's purpose is to make the public respect the intellectual property of other people," the IPO said in a statement. "If someone copies other people's work to join the contest, it runs counter to this purpose."
