A Tango Rythm Trial

Civil court number 10 is dealing with a lawsuit against a newspaper distributer from Buenos Aires which used a series of photographs of Gardel which had been taken and registered by the plaintiffs father in the Copyright registration office in i Uruguay.

The plaintiff was the son of the photographer who took all the images of Gardel between 1917 and 1933 and the lawsuit was filed against the newspaper which distributes the Argentine newspaper in Uruguay, claiming that the photographs had been registered and no permission had been granted for their use in the publication carried out in June 2005.

In the lawsuit it was claimed that according to valid legislation, the company which imported and distributed the newspaper in Uruguayan territory, should have asked for authorization in order to commercialize the publication. For this reason he has requested compensation of USD 20,000 for “damages” and USD 100,000 for “contractual responsibility”:

The plaintiff supports his claim on the fact that the copyright law enables him to demand “compensation for damages and a fine of up to ten times the product”.The ruling was made in favor of the plaintiff, concluding that there was “illicit reproduction” of Gardel’s photography, adding that “through the reproduction of photographs belonging to the plaintiff, the person had illicitly damaged the legally protected rights”:

Quoting the opinion of lawyers who specialize in copyright law, the ruling points out that this specialty could be defined as the right of the creator and his work since there is an indivisible link between the person who has intervened in the act of creation and the production of the same.

Even though the ruling was made in favour of the plaintiff, the amounts to be paid were lowered, totaling 60,000 instead of 120,000 as had initially been asked.