The Romanian broadcaster TVR has ruled that the entry ‘România mea‘, performed by Cream, Minodora and Diana Bucşă is eligible to remain in the final of Selecţia Naţională, following questions over a similarity to a previously released song.
‘România mea‘ is one of the ten songs that will compete in the 2022 Selecţia Naţională final on Saturday February 19th to have a chance to represent Romania at Eurovision 2022 in Turin.
Questions were raised on social media about similarities between two songs. These are the song ‘România mea‘ competing to represent Romania in 2022, and a song of the same name released by the credited producer, Costi Ioniță, on his 2004 album Ziua Mea. Compare the two songs below:
TVR’s decision
TVR have completed an investigation into the allegations. They determined that the ‘România mea‘ competing in Selecţia Naţională 2022 does not break contest rules and will be eligible :
NB: the TVR statement refers to a 2012 song. However the song alleged to be similar (from this social media post) is from Costi Ioniță’s 2004 release. This is likely just a simple error.
“The 2012 song does indeed have elements in common with the current version entered in the Eurovision 2022 National Selection competition, i.e. the verse starts similarly to the 2012 version. However, the chorus of the song entered in the Eurovision 2022 National Selection competition has a different melodic line, in some parts augmented, in others diminished or with totally different motifs.
According to the provisions of Article 8(a) of Law No 8/1996, republished, as subsequently amended and supplemented, works created from one or more pre-existing works, musical arrangements and any other transformations of a work constitute derivative works, representing an intellectual work of creation.
As we have shown, according to the legislation in force, the adaptation of a musical work is considered a new musical work with a different melodic line and orchestral arrangement, i.e. a musical work generating new copyright. In this situation, the members of the Appeals Committee unanimously consider that the new version of the musical work entered in the competition does not infringe the provisions of the Rules of the National Selection concerning the strict period of public communication of the song, i.e. 1 September 2021″.
TVR official statement, translated from Romanian
Selecţia Naţională 2022
10 finalists, including ‘România mea‘, will compete in the Selecţia Naţională show on Saturday. The Romanian entrant to Eurovision 2022 will be decided by a 50/50 split of jury and televote voting.
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