French school choir hits sour note in film royalties row

Discords and sour notes are threatening to tear apart a French children's choir whose angelic singing helped to create the country's biggest film and music hit of last year.

Discords and sour notes are threatening to tear apart a French children's choir whose angelic singing helped to create the country's biggest film and music hit of last year.

In a near rerun of a row which soured the success of another French hit film about a village school, parents of the children who sang the music in the award-winning film Les Choristes say that their offspring have not been paid a centime for their work.

Other parents have taken their children out of the Choeur du Collège Saint-Marc in Lyons because they say that the film's success has made the choir's touring schedule "infernal".

Legal action is threatened by one parent, Francis Hartmann, who says his daughter, Lucile 14, is entitled to a cut from the phenomenal success of Les Choristes , including revenue from 8.5 million cinema seats and 1.5 million soundtrack CDs sold in France alone.

The low-budget movie, about a choir in a school for delinquent boys in the 1940s, was an unsuccessful nominee as best foreign film in last week's Oscars. It is enjoying worldwide box-office success.

As with a previous legal dispute over the school documentary, Etre et Avoir , it is the unexpected commercial triumph which has caused the problem.

The leader of the Saint-Marc choir was offered a cut in the profits when his children recorded the original songs for Les Choristes . He chose instead to take a one-off €21,000 (£14,600) fee. The movie's producers have since given the choir an ex-gratia payment of €121,000 as a share of the royalties from the soundtrack CD.

All of this money has been paid into the funds of the choir. Not a penny has been paid to the children.

Some parents accept the argument of the film's producers and the choir leader that this is normal and above-board. The choir members are amateurs, they say, who belong to a voluntary organisation. They should not expect a cut of the proceeds.

The composer of the movie's music, Bruno Coulais, said: "At €21,000 for two, three-hour recording sessions, this choir already cost more than the London Symphony Orchestra."

A lawyer for M. Hartmann and other parents, Alain Jakubowicz, says this argument presents a "legal, financial and moral problem". Leaving aside the success of the film, he says, musical performers would normally get between 8 and 10 per cent of the proceeds of the sale of a CD.

The 20 children in the choir, he says, are therefore entitled to royalties of €1.2m from the 1.5 million records sold.

In the case of Etre et Avoir , a documentary about a one-class village school in the Auvergne, the teacher tried to cash in on the film's global success by arguing in court that it was based on his "original work". Parents of the children sought appearance fees. Their legal actions were rejected but appeals are pending.