MANILA, Philippines -- The Filipino Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (FILSCAP) will start deliberations this week on possible court action against GMA Network and the GMA Kapuso Foundation.
The planned legal action stemmed from alleged copyright infringement over the unauthorized use of composer Gary Granada’s studies in a final version of an advertising jingle for the network’s campaign with Procter & Gamble (P&G) Philippines.
In an interview with INQUIRER.net, Granada said FILSCAP members were set to discuss the matter in upcoming meetings and decide whether to pursue the case, which proponents planned to file either before a Quezon City court or the Intellectual Property Office.
“Within this week, ang [my] anticipation ko, FILSCAP hopefully will decide to pursue this case. I hope it will reach the Supreme Court so that we can get a ruling and it will be discussed broadly. It will be good for everybody, win or lose,” Granada said.
More than seeking legal redress, Granada says taking the case further in the justice system will benefit composers and creative artists like him. He said he would not agree to any out-of-court settlement.
“I’m really more interested in a Supreme Court ruling than a settlement kasi pagka-settlement pwede mo nang tabunan ito [if it’s a settlement, we can close this]. Wala nang [There won’t be]…no further discussions. Ang maganda kasi kung may [What is good is that if there is a] ruling, magkakaroon talaga siya ng [there will be a] benchmark. And in the future, yung mga musikero [the musicians] can have something to look forward to. Ay pare, talo tayo diyan [Hey buddy, we will lose]. So pag gumawa ka ng [So if you do a] study, kalimutan mo nang makukuha ka kung matalo ka [forget about being hired if you lose]. O pag sasabihin mong panalo tayo diyan, may laban tayo [And if you’ll say that we will win, then we have a fight on our hands]. Maganda siyang umpisa [This is a good start], precedent. That’s what I’m hoping. Mag-evolve ng appreciation ng users [For users’ appreciation] of artistic works [to evolve] and creators and general public on this case,” Granada notes.
Audio narrative
But as the issue progressed, Granada said he was overwhelmed by the amount of support he had been getting since sending out an e-mail that carried an audio narrative in MP3 format detailing his complaints against the GMA Kapuso Foundation.
“I’ve read hundreds of e-mail, blog posts…Naiinsecure nga ako [I am getting ginsecure]. Parang mas maraming nakikinig sa MP3 na ito kaysa sa music ko [It looks like a lot of people are listening to the MP3 more than to my music],” Granada quipped.
Granada hoped that the case would spawn “an open, intelligent public discourse that will benefit everybody regardless the outcome of the case.”
Granada, a FILSCAP member, called the attention of the group late last year, charging that GMA still used his edited lyrics and musical structure in the final version of the jingle for the “3-Pid Handog sa Edukasyon” campaign with P&G.
GMA Kapuso Foundation commissioned Granada to compose a jingle for the co-branded campaign. After Granada submitted his study, the foundation and partner P&G rejected his study.
“They thought that my piece was not as flowing as they want. There was not enough buildup,” Granada recalled. GMA informed him of the decision in a meeting that he says was “pleasant and had no tension.” Granada refused to alter his study further and begged off from the project. He said he even suggested composers who could complete the job.
“I excused myself politely…either you accept this or not…if not, just make sure you go back to the original lyrics,” Granada said.
Striking resemblance
When GMA 7 launched the campaign last month, Granada claimed the broadcasted ad carried a final version of the jingle which bore a striking resemblance to his study that the foundation rejected. He said the lyrics were the same revisions he added to the original copy and that the harmonic progression was similar to his study.
“That is why I was surprised when I saw on TV, ito yung ginawa ko [this was what I had done]. Hindi naman parehong-pareho yung melody [The melody was not exactly the same]. Pero yung lyrics, parehong pareho [But the lyrics were exactly the same]. But besides that, yung progression…ako musikero ako [the progression. I am a musician]…any musician would see na sobra namang pareho yung progression [that the progression was so much alike]. That is why sinabi ko, ginamit nila yung edits ko [I said, they used my edits]. The response was dismissive then, doon na nag-umpisa na collective effort naman namin yun [they started saying that it was our collective effort]. So doon na ako nagsumbong sa [So that’s when I went to] FILSCAP.”
FILSCAP had since asked GMA Network to respond to Granada’s complaint.
In a January 26 letter to FILSCAP, GMA Network Vice-President Dick Perez said any infringement case against the network was “clearly without basis.”
Citing a landmark US Court of Appeals copyright infringement decision in Erickson v. Trinity Theater Inc., Perez said “ideas, refinements, and suggestions, standing alone, are not independently copyrightable.”
Collective effort
He added that Granada could not claim any portion of the jingle as his intellectual property because it was borne out of “collective effort.”
“To be sure, there were changes made on the lyrics…however, these changes were not made by Mr. Granada alone,” Perez said. “[The] changes were not made by Mr. Granada alone. [These] were the result of a brainstorming session [attended by the GMA team, Mr. Granada and his manager] to address the concerns of the advertiser.”
Perez however admitted that one word in the jingle -- “pagpupunyagi” (striving) -- came from Granada.
“But one word from Mr. Granada [or even three, assuming, without admitting, that all changes were made by Mr. Granada] does not make the piece his own,” Perez said.
Granada said that this simplified his concerns and even undermined his dignity.
“Telling me, alam mo, walang kwenta yung ginagawa mo [you know, your work is worthless]. Papalitan mo lang yung isang salita, gusto mo nang kumita [You want to change a word, you want to profit]. Para mo akong ipinahiya sa mga anak ko [It’s like embarrassing me in front of my children]. Para mo akong tinangalan ng dignidad sa trabaho ko…[It’s like you stripped me of my dignity]. It did not take me 30 days to finish the composition. It took me 30 years to hone the skills required to create the composition. Ngayon ang ipinamumukha mo sa akin na pinalitan ko lang ang isang salita [Now you are telling me that I only changed one word]?” Granada said.
Joint authorship
But Perez said Granada could not claim authorship or joint authorship of the lyrics by saying that the words sung in the jingle were part of his version.
“A claim by Mr. Granada does not square with [the fact] that GMA provided the lyrics and that Granada rewrote portions thereof, which means [admitting] as well the authorship of the lyrics by GMA,” Perez said.
Granada says GMA is skirting the issues he raised.
“I am a lyricist in my own right, and I have absolutely no interest in ‘co-authoring’ with advertisement copywriters. I set their lyrics to music by composing pieces which also entails editing their ‘copies,’ as is the practice in the industry. If they are indeed capable of ‘co-authoring’ compositions, there would have been no need for composers to do that for them.”
He emphasizes that GMA should not have used any of the revisions that came from his study and instead worked on the original, unedited version of the copy.
“They used the study as a springboard, as a platform for making this version that they aired. Since they disapproved my study, they can’t use it [and] whatever elements from it. The problem lies in that they didn’t approve it and yet they still used it. That’s my claim.”
Denial
As for the jingle’s melody, which seemed to have progressed on the musical structure of the study Granada previously submitted, GMA Kapuso Foundation said the composer who replaced Granada in the project denied using it.
“We have called the attention of the composer about Mr. Granada’s complaint. It should be noted that GMA or its employees did not compose the music but engaged a professional composer to do so. The composer denies Mr. Granada’s claim," GMA Kapuso Foundation executive vice president Mel Tiangco said in the statement.
Tiangco further clarified that no employee or volunteer of the GMA Kapuso Foundation was involved in the campaign.
“Mr. Granada was tapped to write the melody for the campaign’s jingle by GMA Marketing and Productions Inc [GMPI]. While GMAKF is the beneficiary of the campaign, no officer or employee of GMAKF was involved in any process related to the writing and composition of the jingle,” Tiangco said.
In the MP3 audio narrative, Granada sang the final version of the jingle over a minus-one copy of his study. The music seemed a perfect fit.
“Think about it. Yung mga parteng may kanta, may mga 28 na bara yun [The part that was sung, it has around 28 bars]. Yung [The] probability na magkaroon na magkahawig mula umpisa hanggang dulo ay ganito: Sa bawat bara [that there will be similarities from beginning to end is this: In every bar], you have theoretically dozens of possible combinations. Sabihin na lang natin dalawang possibilities na lang [Let’s just say there are only two possibilities] per bar, that will be two times two times 27 times mong i-multiply [that you multiply]. The chances of that coincidence will be one in 134,217,728. At those odds, I think our dog has a better chance to become president of this God-forsaken country since they are throwing it to the dogs anyway,” Granada said in the narrative.
Granada reiterated his contention: “Hindi nila magagawa yun kung hindi nila sinamantala yung ginawa ko [They could not have done it if they did not take advantage of my work].”
“If we just let GMA Kapuso Foundation and [its client] Procter & Gamble get away with it that is like applauding their arrogance and condoning stealing. And to think that GMA as publisher sits on the board of FILSCAP, which protects the rights of composers and lyricists, at may anti-piracy campaign pang lumalabas sa GMA [and GMA airs an anti-piracy campaign]. Kung hahayaan natin ito [If we allow this], what is now stopping anyone from commissioning artists in general to make studies, only to reject them, make easily done modifications out of their hard work, and pass them off as entirely new creations altogether,” Granada said.
