Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Belgium
Who owns the rights to a diary and unpublished songs?
I am writing a biography on Jeannine Deckers AKA The Singing Nun who died in 1985. The owner of her journal, letters and a video of her singing some unpublished songs contacted me regarding my book. Luc is no relation to Ms. Deckers and though he loaned the materials to two European authors, he wanted a third of the profits from me and my partner and co-author status. We turned him down when he wanted a contract up front before allowing us to even view the jouranl.
Ms. Deckers left a will in which she stated that her friend and executor, Jean Berlier(deceased)be entrusted to produce a biography of her true story. The other executor Jean-Yves Quellec allegedly just gave the materials to Luc when he asked for them and Berlier gave him all the rights.
Jeannine has a sister and many cousins surviving, so how can this man legally own her documents and all the rights to everything including the song, Dominique? Luc is just a minor politican with no connections to Jeannine, to book publishers or film makers, so he does not have the ability to honor Jeannine's wishes. Could he be successful challenged in court?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Who owns the rights to a diary and unpublished songs?
I second Mr. Rosen's answer. You have a layer of copyright and publicity rights laws (US v. France v. others?) and a layer of probate laws. You need to determine how badly you need this material for this book and whether you or your publisher are willing to spring for the legal fees involved.
Best of luck to you.
Best regards,
Todd D. Epp, Esq.
Admitted in KS and SD
Re: Who owns the rights to a diary and unpublished songs?
This is an incredibly complex set of facts, and any answer supplied without a thorough review of all the documents and applicable laws cannot do it justice. Items that would have to be reviewed include the wording of the will, the probate laws of the jurisdiction in which it was settled, the rights of publicity for the jurisdictions in which Jeannine Deckers resided as well as died in, the copyright laws of the jurisdictions in which the works were created and/or registered, as well as the copyright laws for the jurisdictions in which Jeannine Deckers resided as well as died in, any international accords for any of the same jurisdictions, and the choice of law rules for all of these jurisdictions.
As you can see, this is a tremendous quantity of work that must be done. I was involved once in a similar dispute concerning the estate of Richard Wright and the ownership of the rights in and to some of his letters. Since the owner of the physical letters resided in France, but the owners of the copyrights in the letters resided in the US, it became quite a mess. The owners in the copyrights did prevail, but it took a lot of time and energy to get it sorted out.
The bottom line is that you need to retain counsel to untangle this mess. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer that can be provided in this forum.
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