The Witcher 3 has, apparently, played host to a plagiarised song composed by Elvis Stanić, a popular Croatian composer whose work - according to the author's claims - was illegally appropriated by Percival, the musical group who supplied the game's OST.
Witcher 3 Widow-Maker OST is the name of the song in question, and one must admit that the resemblance between this Percival rendition and the 'Naranča' original is uncanny. Even the lyrics seem to be unchanged, and now a lawsuit is brewing.
According to Stanić, CD Projekt RED has ignored his lawyer's repeated attempts to communicate on the matter of copyright infringement, instead opting to silently remove the Widow-Maker OST from The Witcher 3's official soundtrack and hope that nobody notices.
Stanić was quick to present his case: "Despite the warnings my lawyers sent to CD Project, the developer ignored the warnings, removed the song, but then continued to release it unlawfully via vinyl releases. My song Naranča has been illegally renamed to Widow-Maker and signed by Mikolai Stroinski and Marcin Przybyłowicz. The original composition of Orson's song for the Croatian vocal composition of Putokazi 2000 and duly registered with ZAMP (Croatian music rights protection group) and the International Authors' Center (CISAC)."
Furthermore, Stanić is now actively reporting all Youtube videos containing 'Naranča' in its reappropriated form for copyright infringement, unless the video acknowledges him as the original creator and holder of the given intellectual property.
"As a composer, I'm delighted to have my song found in such a popular game and have so many fans, but it was stolen, its use was unauthorized, and I was subjected to damage as its exclusive author," concluded Stojić.
