Bacalov v. Endrigo

Cass. civ., sez. I., 23 novembre 2005, n. 24594 (It.)

Comment by Charles Cronin

There is a distinctly Italian, in fact operatic, cast to the circumstances of this dispute. Luis Bacalov won an Academy Award for his score for the 1994 movie Il Postino (1994). Sergio Endrigo, who had collaborated with Bacalov in an earlier successful career as a popular singer (à la manière de Julio Iglesias), perhaps motivated in part by “the green monster,” then sued Bacalov for over $6 million damages, claiming Bacalov’s award-winning score used without authorization the melody of his popular number “Nelle mie notti.”

Endrigo appealed the decision of the Rome court of original jurisdiction, which had determined Bacalov’s work did not infringe upon his. The court of appeals reversed the lower court’s decision, in a judgment that first dutifully addresses thirteen defenses of that decision that Bacalov asserted. Endrigo’s infringement allegation centered on the melodic similarity, virtual identity, he claimed, between the first four measures of the principal melody of his song and the plaintive tune played on a bandoneon (precious!) that emerges out of Bacalov’s Mahler-derivative introduction.

The ire that this decision incited in Bacalov survived even Endrigo’s death in 2005. Only in 2013 did Bacalov reach a financial settlement with Endrigo’s estate, and acknowledged that he had deliberately incorporated Endrigo’s contested melody in his Postino score.

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Judgment (Sept. 23, 2005) (attenzione! in italiano): PDF