SHOCK - Rights of Greek National Anthem Belong To Sony Music !

 (credit: Free Grunge Textures - www.freestock.ca)

This is one of those stories that is too incredible to be true. According to a report on defencenet, when the former workers of ERT uploaded a video to YouTube recently with the Greek national anthem in the background they were shocked and dismayed to discover that the company management and music distribution IODA, now known as Orchard owns the copyright of Greece's National Anthem (lyrics Dionysios Solomos, music by Nikolaos Mantzaros) and therefore its use is prohibited without assigned copyrights!

The company was apparently founded in 2003 and has a global network of collective management and distribution of music and movies.

The former workers said that when the video was uploaded on Youtube, the video channel sent them a notice telling them that they should remove certain sections of the video because the audio accompanying the images was under copyright and if that was not feasible then YouTube would run advertisements at the beginning of the video in the framework of reimbursing the holder of the copyright the due amounts.

So who is behind this company? Apparently the company is active in about 27 countries and cooperates with the biggest online media content providers such as YouTube, iTunes, Amazon, etc. in, etc... and belongs largely to the Sony Music Entertainment (in other words... the Japanese own the copyright to the Greek national anthem).

The question is which party holds copyright or related rights to the National Anthem and another question would be were these rights allocated between 2010 and 2012 with the signing of the first two Memorandums? (Signed by the George Papandreou and Lucas Papademos governments).

This is a HUGE issue because it touches the hearts of each and everyone of us.
In front of this, everything else is here say.

If this report is true, then the Greek government has to respond to this and quick.

We want to know who in their right mind gave away these rights, and we want to know why he or she did this.

Is there nothing sacred anymore?

Have other countries given away such rights as well?

Not everything in society is about money!

Bravo (kolo kai psefto) Ellinarades ... 

Article in Greek - defencenet