Slovenian Rockers Laibach to Sue Croatian Right-Wingers

Laibach frontman Milan Fras. Photo: Flickr

Laibach said on Thursday that they will file a lawsuit for copyright infringement against the right-wing Croatian Democratic Assembly of Slavonia and Baranja, HDSSB party after it used their song ‘Geburt einer Nation’ in a promotional video without permission.

The HDSSB, whose honorary president is Croatian war crimes suspect Branimir Glavas, used the song from Laibach’s 1987 album ‘Opus Dei’ album in a video to promote a uniformed party youth unit called the Slavonian Hawk Guard.

The Slavonian Hawk Guard video with the song in the background was shown at a party rally, but it was also broadcast by local television and therefore made public and subject to the copyright infringement allegation.

The guard was first shown in a video made by Croatian newspaper 24 Sata, which showed a group of young men dressed in black uniforms carrying party, Croatian and regional flags.

Their training was supervised by Glavas, who was released from prison in January due to procedural issues in his trial for war crimes against Serb civilians in Osijek in eastern Croatia in 1991. He is currently awaiting retrial.

Glavas has insisted that the Slavonian Hawk Guard is not “a party army” but a “sports and recreation section, which will also take care of security [at party events and rallies]”.

The wartime commander also made headlines recently when pictures of him posing with a bottle of wine with Adolf Hitler’s face on the label were posted on Facebook.

Laibach argued that the HDSSB did not ask for permission or pay to use their song.

The band said that they had informed the owner of the song’s copyright in Croatia, the state service for protection of music copyright, ZAMP.

“They [ZAMP] are the first ones required to take legal action for the unlawful use of the song, and consider the possibility of lawsuits. One of the creators of the HDSSB’s video used the song illegally, ignoring or not knowing copyright legislation,” Laibach said.

The HDSSB’s president Dragan Vulic told media on Thursday that he “did not participate in creating the video”.

HDSSB MP Ivan Drmic said that the party pays all relevant fees to ZAMP but that the Slavonian Hawk Guard video was “practically never publicly released”.

“If they feel that we harmed them, I apologise to them. I hope that a lawsuit will not be considered, since there are no elements for starting [one],” he said.

ZAMP however said HDSSB had paid for “playing music in a public place” but emphasised that this does not include using a song for a video.

“To use the music in a new audiovisual work, the author of the audiovisual work needs the explicit permission of the composer,” ZAMP said.

Laibach became renowned in the early 1980s for their cultural resistance to censorship and totalitarian tendencies in socialist Yugoslavia.