Two Italian Producers in Legal Battle Over Songwriting Credits

Legal representatives for two Italian man who are accused of trying to swipe royalties for 200 songs are strongly denying the charges. Athos Poma and Giuseppe Fedi have been accused of stealing around $284,000 in payments.

The duo have been found guilty of taking advantage of a loophole in the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers computer system in which many famous original compositions had somehow gone unregistered. Poma and Fedi -- the latter of whom worked at ISAP and facilitated the scam -- allegedly claimed the rights to more than 200 songs between 2006-08. Once the loophole was discovered, the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers created a holding fund for the due royalties until the process could be fixed.

Poma has been sentenced to 18 months in jail, while Fedi will be incarcerated for 20 months. Lawyers for Poma, who was acquitted on separate charges of plagiarism, say they will appeal, according to reports.

Note: An earlier version of this reported stated that Athos Poma had claimed the work of other composers, namely Paul McCartney's "My Love," "Liar" by Queen and "People are Strange" by The Doors. We would like to clarify that this is not the case.

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