The story around the Atomic Heart trailer and the song “Music Connected Us” used in it continues to unfold. The head of the Mundfish studio, Robert Bagratuni, responded to the public claims of the founder of the Mirage group, Andrei Lityagin.
Atomic Heart
Recall that the position of the agency “Top7” was published today.
The other day, the agency blocked the Atomic Heart trailer due to the use of the composition of the group “Mirage” in it. It and the author of the track claim that Mundfish had no right to insert the song “Music connected us” into the video.
Below we cite Robert Bagratuni’s response comment.
Robert BagratuniI am sure you are aware that the trailer that we showed at E3 was blocked on our channel at the request of the “copyright holder”.
In the comments, of course, they immediately began to fizzle out that we just took the song and inserted it into the trailer. I hasten to note: with this approach, you will never be released at E3 with a trailer.
The composer Lityagin has just given his comment on this situation. He said that he would make us a “judicial nightmare for many years,” that he has a higher education, and therefore can calculate how much it costs to develop our game, and that is why we have to pay a lot of money. This is how he argues the cost of using the track.
I want to share a picture from our side and tell you how this situation will affect Atomic Heart.
To insert a song into the trailer at E3, we contacted one of the largest agencies on the market, the National Music Publishing House (NMI). There we were shown a license agreement with the composer on the use of the track, where he transfers a large list of rights, including the right to rework. His signature is at the end of the document.
We checked everything with a lawyer, signed up.
After we have already concluded the contract, a man by the name of Cherkasov writes to us and says: “Buy the rights here as well.” We replied: “Okay, first prove that you have a legal basis for this.”
For more than 2 months, he never presented the documents on the basis of which we were “supposed to buy the rights from him as well.”
We’re trying to figure out the situation: “Okay, maybe we can talk to the composer?“.
The official representative did not connect us with the composer either. He was just saying: “The NMI is breeding you, they don’t have the rights to the Mirage, the composer is hysterical, either you will pay several times more than you have already paid the NMI, or you will be banned.”
Once again: the composer did not get in touch with us, but at the same time claims that we stuck our head in the sand. No agreements were reached on the fact of Cherkasov’s appeal, no legal documents proving that the NMI were wrong were provided.
So: Cherkasov, who claims that he is a representative of the Top7 agency (we have not received comments from them), knows that we are going to use the song, does not make us a counter commercial offer on a legal basis, but simply waits for the trailer to come out, then bans it and begins to threaten us with a vengeance. Unfortunately, you can throw a strike on YouTube without documents. We have already challenged the claim with all the necessary contracts and are now waiting for a decision from YouTube.
Then it’s cool in general: the trailer is blocked, and the composer Lityagin, without contacting us personally, immediately gives a public comment, according to which we had no right to edit the composition (we used the phonogram provided to us by the NMI, without any changes contrary to the contract), and the money he asks for, this is for us “tipping in a restaurant“.
I understand that Mirage has been collecting tips for a long time: there are already 3 or 4 lawsuits, constant division of rights, which we learned about only now in fact, when we began to be dragged into this swamp.
We believe that we are doing a cool and important thing: we are not only trying to make a powerful AAA game, we are popularizing Soviet aesthetics, Soviet art and domestic music.
We found a way to show an awesome song to the whole world – it climbed up on Spotify, iTunes and YouTube. The group was remembered, they began to write them joyful comments — well, it’s awesome when this happens!
And for me personally, it’s amazing that instead of profiting from this unexpected promo, the guys want to cut off some additional deductions from us.
It doesn’t concern us in any case: this is a dispute between the NMI, whose full rights we have seen with our own eyes, and the “Top-7” with their representative, Cherkasov.
As a result, only one question is important to us: “How will this affect Atomic Heart?”
The answer is “no way.”
We prefer authentic Soviet music of the 60s and 80s. And “Mirage”, of course, was one of our favorites. Until today.
Our job is to make a game, not worry about how much tip we still owe according to the waiter. You understand: this is some kind of super toxic behavior, no normal person would want to mess with it.
We are primarily about cool music and creativity. It’s a pity that the guys in 2021 were not about this.
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Bagratuni also sent a comment to the NMI. The original looks like a legal document. It specifies the license agreement numbers, on the basis of which the company declares that it is the owner of an exclusive license to use the musical work “Music connected us”. This includes a license for:
- inclusion of the work in the composition of audiovisual works;
- processing of a work for use as part of audiovisual works;
- bringing the work as part of audiovisual works to the public.
In addition, the NMI insists that it has all the necessary permissions to grant these rights to third parties.
Based on this, the NMI reports that the use of the composition “Music connected us” in the Atomic Heart trailer is carried out legally.