Veljo Tormis

The intellectual property team of Law Firm VARUL led by lawyer Mati Kaalep represented the Estonian composer Veljo Tormis in a plagiarism dispute against BBC Worldwide Limited as the creator of the popular Australian crime series Top of the Lake, See-Saw Holdings PTY LTD as the producer of the series, and the Australian composer Mark Bradshaw.

The dispute concerned the soundtrack of the award-winning six-episode Australian TV crime series Top of the Lake, which was jointly produced by the BBC and See-Saw, in which the composer Mark Bradshaw used Veljo Tormis’ folk song arrangement Kust tunnen kodu ("How Can I Recognise My Home?") in the theme tune and episodes of the series without the consent of the composer.

As a result of the international dispute, which lasted over a year, the parties reached an extrajudicial agreement according to which Tormis will be included among royalty recipients and the composer’s name will be added to the credits of future copies of the series.