Because of changed song line
Display against Beatrice Egli and Florian Silbereisen
Beatrice Egli and Florian Silbereisen made a small change when they appeared in the song “1000 and 1 night”. According to the lawyer, the ad they received for it has only a small chance of getting through.
Published: 3 minutes ago
1/5
The hit stars Beatrice Egli and Florian Silbereisen changed a song line in the hit “1000 and 1 night” in “The big hit farewell” ten days ago.
Laszlo SchneiderEditor People
Unpleasant aftermath of a lavish music evening: The Swiss pop singer Beatrice Egli (34) and the German musician Florian Silbereisen (41) performed the song “1000 und 1 Nacht” from 1984 together – it is one of the most successful so far Songs in the German charts. Because the duo didn’t like the word “Indians” in it, they quickly replaced it with “together”.
“Remember, we played Indians” became “Remember, we played together”. Hit-maker Diether Dehm (72), of all people, who is jointly responsible for the text, then reported via Facebook – and was so angry about the change without prior consultation that he filed a criminal complaint against Egli and Silbereiseisen.
“If the disfigurement of a protected artistic work in Germany were not already a copyright infringement, i.e. a criminal offence, Florian Silbereisen and Beatrice Egli would have to go to a closed facility simply because of gross nonsense,” rumbled the producer on social media – and received a lot of encouragement from his fans. He also insists that his “children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren should be allowed to play Indians at any time, just as hopefully young Indians should be allowed to play ‘old white men’ all over the world forever”.
Lawyer considers success of the ad “unlikely”
Whether Egli and Silbereisen apologize publicly or even face a penalty for copyright infringement has not yet been finally clarified. Opposite Blick, the German lawyer Philipp Obladen from the Obladen Gaessler law firm in Cologne explains the situation. He considers it “unlikely” that the complainant Dehm will be successful with his criminal complaint: “Basically, the collecting society for music in Germany, GEMA, only pays amounts to the authors if the content is reproduced one-to-one during a performance. It is therefore indeed necessary to check whether there is a copyright infringement here.”
However, he has doubts as to whether the deletion of a word in just one line of a song is enough to violate copyright, “especially since the meaning of the whole song was not distorted and the old work does not suffer”. A fine can be completely ruled out, at least a civil dispute, but according to Obladen not.
The first case is rare, but in special cases it can be punished with imprisonment of up to five years or severe fines. However, Obladen sees the range of penalties here as “not being exhausted” unless Silbereisen and Egli have a criminal record. If the copyright infringement is dealt with under civil law, it must be checked whether the authors of “1000 and 1 Nights” are entitled to compensation.
A request for a statement from Beatrice Eglis Management has so far remained unanswered.