Their hit suddenly had to go offline, now the makers of carnival hit ‘Dikke Pens’ ABBA

It was one of the largest carnival hits of this year. But a week after the party was over, and shortly after the song had exceeded the one million streams on the Spotify music service, ‘thick tripe’ was taken offline. At the insistence of music publisher Universal, commissioned by the worldwide known Swedish music group ABBA. Dikke Pens is clearly based on their world hit ‘Take A Chance On Me’, from 1977.

The artists of carnival band De Klekotte Stachels and singer René van Rooij came up with the idea when they thought they could hear a Dutch text in Abba’s title line. But where Abba sings the romantic love, the carnival cracker is all about being Dik’s joy, especially of people who have previously tried to lose weight. I am so happy, with mine’s tripeis the chorus, musically identical to the ABBA number. The couplets are melodically adapted, and have texts like To get fat, it is never too late. “The original couplets are too Moodytoo complex, not enough VoEMP FEEMP For carnival, “says Sander Ottens, one of the members of the carnival group.

The broken stoves are now at the crowdfunden and want to rake the eleventh of the eleventh (11 November), 25,000 euros before the start of the carnival season to drag ABBA to court. That amount is an estimate of the costs they have to incur if a judge is inequality. That is not what their music lawyer expects. “We have a strong thing,” says Victor den Hollander. “As a maker, you have a prohibition right if someone else will take your work. But that does not apply if a pastiche or a parody is made of it.”

Whether that is the case is a matter of interpretation, the lawyer explains. “Carnival music has often been nothing but hooking up on a popular melody and making a crazy text on it. Perhaps the Swedish Abba is not sufficiently aware of the Dutch customs around Carnival, I can imagine, but that is no excuse for Universal. It seems that it was only clear that the song was such a great success.” Universal was not available for comment on Wednesday.

Another music lawyer, Rob van Dongen, points out that makers have the right to prohibit the exploitation of their music by someone else via platforms such as Spotify if the copyrights are not neatly arranged. It is customary for platforms such as Spotify to respond to these ‘take down requests’. The parody of a song is a limitation of copyright, according to Van Dongen. “But the purpose of a parody can be commercial in addition to generating the laughing spirit.” And parodies with the aim of competing are not allowed.

In addition, there may also be an infringement of the ‘personality rights’. Van Dongen: “The maker can state that his intentions have been damaged; that his music has been deformed, narrowed, raped.” According to the broken heaters lawyer, this is not the case. Den Hollander: “You can have moral objections if the work is suddenly used in a political context that you never meant, but here it’s only about cheerfulness.” And the fact that the commercial success of ‘Dikke Pens’ is at the expense of popularity and market share of ABBA does not want it at all. “This is a struggle between David and Goliath.”

The broken heaters warn on their website that the ban threatens all carnival music. “Because the freedom to be able to make the coolest songs with horribly weak chatter; is all of us!” Singer Sander Ottens: “Do you know what is crazy? They think they can kill an idea with such a ban. They reach the opposite.”

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