EMI faces Oxygene battle

17:48 | Friday March 7, 2008

The label signed a deal in January to give away a re-recording of Jean Michel Jarre’s classic album Oxygene with the paper to tie-in with Jarre’s 30th anniversary tour of the album.

On the CD it claims to be an “original score re-recorded and mixed by Jean Michel Jarre”, published by Jean Michel Jarre and Francis Dreyfus Music.

By re-recording the album, Jarre would be free to sign a deal with EMI for the new recording.

However, Dreyfus, who claims to own the rights to the original Oxygene, having signed Jarre to his Disques Motors, alleges that the album given away with the Mail On Sunday is merely a re-mastered version of the original Oxygene and is to launch a case alleging infringement of rights by EMI / the Mail On Sunday.

Web Sheriff managing director John Giacobbi, whose company is representing Drefyus in the matter, says that EMI and the Mail On Sunday have been placed on notice pending a further musicologist’s report.

However, he explains that he already has two reports that support his case. “Our client’s position, which has now been reinforced by both the technical report and musicologist report, is that the 2007 version of Oxygene is simply a digital re-mastering of the original 1970s multi-track masters.”

These reports, he explains, indicate that defects on the original album which resulted from the recording process re-appear on the new version of the album.

The suit will seek an injunction similar to that in the recent Experience Hendrix / Sunday Times case. In that, Experience Hendrix won a case against the newspaper after it gave away a free covermount CD of The Jimi Hendrix Experience's performance at the Royal Albert Hall in February 1969.

Eversheds, which represented Experience Hendrix originally tried to injunct the paper to stop the giveaway on the grounds of copyright infringement.

However, the Sunday Times claimed to be covered by a license agreement with Charly Records and went ahead with the promotion. The case eventually came to the High Court, which found in favour of Experience Hendrix / Eversheds, ruling that it owned the rights in this recording.

Experience Hendrix was awarded an injunction, which prevents the Sunday Times from furthering profiting from the recording and costs, with damages to be awarded at a later date.

Giacobbi says that he thinks damages in this case could run into the millions of pounds, given that the Mail On Sunday distributed around 2m copies of the album and EMI has also issued it internationally.

Giacobbi says that he believes EMI and the Mail On Sunday acted in good faith on the promotion. But he adds, “In hindsight it would have been wise for them to check the provenance of these recordings.”

In a statement EMI says, "We are very confident that Jean Michel Jarre's 30th Anniversary recording of Oxygene is an entirely new recording. A leading independent expert has also confirmed this. We will vigorously contest any claims to the contrary."

Mail On Sunday managing director Stephen Miron says, “From our perspective, we purchased the album through EMI, a well-established company.”

“We view this as tenuous and laughable,” he adds. “There are claims often when we do covermounts.”