Romania has had its fair of controversy once again this year. esctoday.com has been in close contact with the broadcaster in recent weeks. Since Saturday, all the various claims against the country's chosen song, Pe o margine de lume by Nico and Vlad Miriţă have been discussed. esctoday.com can confirm that every accusation has been met with a proved rebuttal.
Already reported by esctoday.com, claims that the song is a copy of Spanish song La magia del Corazon by David Bustamante have been investigated and refuted by an expert musical panel. There are vague similarities, but the same could be set of several other songs. The song is clearly no plagarism.
Additional accusations that the winning songwriter's father was on the reserve jury that voted in the national final have also been investigated and proved to be without foundation. A rumour that the winner's tickets to Belgrade and the Greek national final were booked the day before the final are also untrue.
Evidence proves that Nico and Vlad's travel arrangements were booked and confirmed AFTER their victory on Saturday night. A final accusation, that the song was commercially broadcast prior to 1st October 2007 has now been disproved. In an official statement to esctoday.com, Romanian national broadcaster, TVR states clearly:
"The accusation you are talking about was brought to our attention before the final, by messages on the website. The information also appeared on Mr Partos's blog, but, when asked, he denied that he had postedit there.The composer, Andrei Tudor, requested from the Romanian Union of Musicologists and Composers a document attesting to the truth of the accusation. The union asked for the playlists of the national radio channel in September and the song "Pe o margine de lume" didn't appear on the playlist. We have the official document".
This proves that the radio station did not play the song. Under music law, all songs aired on public radio must be declared to the union so that accurate royalty payments can be made and charts can be compiled.
