Ravel’s Heirs Sue To Pull ‘Bolero’ Back Under Copyright

The composer’s heirs raked in up to €100 million from his greatest hit before Ravel’s music went into the public domain in 2016. Now those (rather distant) heirs have filed a lawsuit against SACEM (France’s ASCAP) arguing that Alexandre Nikolaievitch Benois, the set designer for the ballet for which Bolero was composed, should legally be considered a co-creator of the score. (Why? Because Benois didn’t die until 1960.)